


And I'll Bloody Up My Hands (As Long As You Don't Have To)

by electroniccollectiondonut



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Dagor Bragollach, Gen, Major Character Injury, Time Travel Fix-It, apparently chapter eleven is funny?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-02-22 11:40:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 28,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22215529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electroniccollectiondonut/pseuds/electroniccollectiondonut
Summary: Celegorm is injured during Dagor Bragollach. When he wakes up in Nargothrond, he remembers things that haven't happened yet.
Relationships: Celegorm | Turcafinwë & Curufin | Curufinwë, Celegorm | Turcafinwë & Fingolfin | Ñolofinwë, Celegorm | Turcafinwë & Fingon | Findekáno, Celegorm | Turcafinwë & Finrod Felagund | Findaráto, Celegorm | Turcafinwë & Lúthien Tinúviel, Celegorm | Turcafinwë & Maedhros | Maitimo, Fingolfin | Ñolofinwë & Fingon | Findekáno
Comments: 210
Kudos: 221





	1. Chapter 1

When he wakes, he can’t remember falling asleep in the first place. His eyes are closed, and, given the pain ringing through most of his body, he doesn’t feel very inclined to open them. Still, he must have given some sign of his waking, because he hears a shuffling of fabric and then there’s a gentle hand lifting his head and holding a cool cup to his lips. He drinks, and he can taste the painkillers that the water does little to mask. He doesn’t mind, because they start to work a few minutes later and he falls back to sleep the moment the pain is gone.

Someone is playing with his hair. That’s the first thing he registers the next time he wakes up. That, and the pain is back. It feels like a tremendous effort to open his eyes, but he manages, belatedly realizing that the pained noises he hears are coming from him. A hand passes through his blurry vision then stops suddenly and pulls away: Curufin’s, recognisable by the centuries of little burn scars that mottle the pale skin.

“You’re awake!” That’s Curufin too, he knows, and the voice is followed by the creaking of furniture and a flurry of footsteps, but he’s too busy trying to rationalize the fact that the ceiling of the room he’s in is worryingly close and carved from stone. It looks almost like he’s in Nargothrond, but that can’t be right, he and Curufin were both banished after the Luthien incident. And didn’t Nargothrond fall a few years ago anyway? “Celegorm?” Curufin says after a moment with no answer.

Celegorm manages a noise of acknowledgement. “Narg’thrond?” he croaks, surprised at how bad he sounds.

Curufin confirms this, and begins a stream of useless babble as he turns away. Celegorm tracks him with his eyes, watching him pour a cup of water from a pitcher on a table and then add something to it. Celegorm lets Curufin feed him the painkillers and takes in the room. It looks like a regular guest bedroom in Nargothrond, but it’s filled to the brim with mismatched chairs, from a wingbacked armchair upholstered with rich green velvet to a beat up little folding camp stool that looks like it couldn’t hold a baby without collapsing. Some of the chairs are occupied, but most are empty.

Most of his brothers are crowded around his bed, and so is Finrod. Maglor and Caranthir and Telperinquar aren’t, as they’re dead asleep in three of the chairs. Telperinquar has his little cousin Finduilas asleep in his lap, and Orodreth is sprawled out in another chair, awake and looking horribly uncomfortable, with baby Gil-galad curled up on his chest. Finrod and Orodreth, and both children, are garbed in mourning black. Celegorm realizes abruptly that at least three of the people in the room are dead, possibly more. Well, he’s clearly taken some sort of injury in the battle. Doesn’t the king of Doriath have some Maia blood? That must be it, he lost the fight and Dior did something with his powers, and now he’s hallucinating.

Mystery solved, Celegorm closes his eyes and lets himself drift back toward pain free unconsciousness, resigned to wait it out until it goes away on its own or his brothers find some way to get rid of it faster. Except Curufin doesn’t let him get all the way to sleep, winding a section of hair around his fingers and pulling sharply. Celegorm yelps and instinctively tries to sit up, then gasps as the pain from whatever injury he has returns full force and it’s too much to even draw breath to scream.

He’s pressed back to the bed with a hand on his right shoulder, and Curufin continues to card through his hair in comfort, braiding it in the tiny braids Celegorm has always prefered. Someone holds the mouth of a bottle to his lips and he feels Finrod’s manicured hands holding his head up enough that he can drink. Finrod tips the bottle up and Celegorm almost gags at the bitter taste. Then he starts to feel hazy, and he's too blessedly numb to feel anything even as a healer is called and he watches them, through fading vision, prod at an ugly burn that covers most of his chest and neck and some of his right thigh.

When Celegorm wakes for the third time, he doesn't hurt. He looks around, gingerly in case the pain is just lurking below the surface, and finds that the room is now mostly empty. The chairs are still there, and it still looks like Nargothrond, but it's only Curufin, sitting at his bedside with dark circles under red rimmed eyes, and Maglor, standing over Curufin with a tray of food and begging him to eat. Celegorm reaches out, big brother instincts taking over even though he’s the one who’s bedridden. Curufin looks up and beams, taking his hand. Maglor sets the tray on the nightstand and leaves the room.

“I thought-” Curufin begins, choking on a sob and starting over. “It was so long, I thought you might not wake up…”

Celegorm glares, and wonders idly why his vision is still blurring on the left side. “So you weren’t eating?” he accuses, though it sounds weak even to his own ears.

Curufin is shamefaced, suddenly finding the floor very interesting. He looks at Celegorm again after a few minutes, and Celegorm looks pointedly at the tray. Curufin takes the hint. He moves the tray to his lap and starts to eat, talking about everything and nothing in between bites. It’s too easy sometimes to forget that he’s the second youngest of them all.

Maglor comes back, trailed by the rest of their brothers and Telperinquar. Finduilas toddles along behind Telperinquar, holding on to the dangling string of his leather apron even though it smears forge grime on her hands and frilly pink dress. She peeks over the edge of Celegorm’s bed with wide eyes, and he winces as she starts to climb up, spreading black gunk all over sheets that he knows to be fabulously expensive.

Finduilas sits herself by Celegorm’s legs, saying, as authoritatively as a toddler can, “You made people sad.”

Everyone laughs a little as she continues to scold, as it's a welcome change from the previously very grim atmosphere, and Curufin stops with his spoon halfway to his mouth so he doesn’t choke as he smothers his own laughter. Celegorm listens to her in amusement, finding it somewhat novel to be lectured by a girl who’s barely higher than his knee.

“And that’s not good,” she finishes some time later, punctuating each word with a smack to Celegorm’s ankle that leaves even more little black handprints on the sheets.

“I see,” Celegorm says, with all the seriousness he can muster.

“You be good?” Finduilas asks.

“I’ll be good,” Celegorm promises, though he really isn’t sure what it is a hallucination thinks he’s done wrong.

When Curufin finishes his food, he goes off to get some for Celegorm, and he returns with Orodreth, who’s still garbed in black, in tow. Orodreth takes one look at the mess that has at least, thankfully, stopped spreading, and groans longsufferingly. He grabs Finduilas up and swings her around, then settles her on his hip and examines the stained dress and sheets more closely.

“Oh, that isn’t going to come out easily,” he mutters, them he casts Celegorm a smile completely at odds with his mood the last time they’d met outside of a hallucination. “It’s good to see you awake. You were scaring everyone for a while there.” Then he leaves, and Curufin helps Celegorm to sit up against the pillows so he can eat.

The minutes pass largely in silence as he eats, and he only realizes the meal is drugged when he starts to drift again before he’s even halfway finished. His last thought, before Irmo claims him, is that he’s getting really tired of sleeping.

When he wakes again, and he’s determined not to let anyone put him to sleep again except for himself, Finrod is the one sitting vigil at his bedside, threading green glass beads onto a length of string to keep himself occupied. The king of Nargothrond is still in all black, with his hair pulled back into mourning braids that have frizzed out into a halo of gold that catches all the artificial light in the room and holds it around his head.

“Aren’t you usually cheery?” Celegorm asks, and Finrod jumps a mile in the air, beads scattering across the floor. He looks like a startled cat, Celegorm thinks, and he can’t help but laugh even though it pulls on the burns and leaves him breathless with pain.

“Not when a member of my family has died,” Finrod responds when they’ve both calmed.

Celegorm glanced down at himself. “Fairly sure I’m still alive, actually. Unless spirits can feel physical pain. I’m pretty sure they can’t, though.”

“Not you,” Finrod snaps, “my brothers.”

“Angrod and Aegnor? They’ve been dead for decades. So’ve you.” Celegorm says. He follows it up with, “I know you’re a hallucination.”

Finrod looks terribly taken aback.  _ “What?” _

Celegorm just nods, speaking breezily as though he’s discussing the weather. “You aren’t real. I guess that’s what I get for attacking someone with Maia blood.”

_ “What?” _ Finrod says again, even more incredulous.

“I’d do it again, though. Not even for the Silmaril, just to protect Caranthir and Curufin.”

For a moment, Finrod looks as though he’s going to repeat himself again. Then he abruptly stands and leaves, and Celegorm can hear him counting under his breath all the way out the door.

Eventually, he comes back, and Maedhros with him. Maedhros looks a little pained and a little confused, but mostly worried. He sits down in the chair Finrod was in before, and Finrod comes to stand behind him with a white knuckle grip on the back of the chair.

“Finrod says you think you’re hallucinating,” Maedhros says carefully.

“Of course I am. Finrod and Orodreth and Finduilas are all dead and Nargothrond is gone, Sauron and dragonfire and all that. I fought Dior, and he put a spell on me or something.” Celegorm wiggles his fingers to illustrate that last statement.

“I think you’re confused,” Maedhros says gently, like he’s talking to a wounded animal, and Celegorm tries to roll his eyes. Operative word being tries, because it sends pain lancing through the right side of his head badly enough that he worries for a moment he might be sick.

“Careful!” Maedhros says, alarmed. “Your eye isn’t completely healed yet.”

“Oh, healed from what?” Celegorm growls. He’s tired of being questioned and kept in the dark and treated like he’s so fragile. “What am I supposed to believe is going on here? Want to give me a hint? Because I have no. Damn. Clue.”

“Celegorm,  _ you  _ were the one caught in dragonfire.” Maedhros’ tone is still frustratingly gentle, even though what he’s saying makes no sense.

“There are no  _ dragons _ in Doriath,” Celegorm says scathingly. “I  _ think  _ I would have  _ noticed _ , don’t you?”

Maedhros takes a deep breath and Finrod groans. “You’ve never been to Doriath. No one can get passed the Girdle even if we wanted to.”

“There is no Girdle!” Celegorm cries, voice raising in frustration. Shouldn’t Maedhros be smarter than this? “Melian left when Thingol died!”

“Celegorm, Thingol is still alive. You were caught in dragonfire protecting your people and Curufin when Morgoth set the world on fire.”

“That was more than fifty years ago, and the only injury I took was a twisted ankle.”

Maedhros growls, then walks to the other side of the room and produces a mirror from a dresser drawer and holds it out for Celegorm to take. Celegorm humours him. It’s not as though he’s going to see anything other than what he always sees. Except that he does.

The left side of his hair is shaved close to his head. The right is still long, but it’s tangled and matted from Eru only knows how long lying in bed. His left ear is mangled, the burned flesh twisted and red. The burn, bits of it healed and scarred over, stretches down the left side of his face. His eye is… intact, but that’s all that can be said for it. It’s filmy, looking more blue now than grey. The corner of his mouth is twisted and a little stiff, but not particularly painful. The burn continues down his neck, twisting the flesh nauseatingly. He knows it goes down to his elbow on the left side and covers most of his torso and right thigh. He sees his right eye widen and the unburned part of his face pale before he drops the mirror.

“We have to go to Hithlum,” he says, and he’s up and out of bed before the pain or Maedhros can catch up with him. If there’s a chance, even a sliver of a fraction of a chance that any of this is real, he can’t let Morgoth kill everyone in his family.

Maedhros and Finrod are quick to grab for him, and, as much as he hates to admit it, he doesn’t have enough strength to fight both of them right now. Instead, he ducks out the door, picking a direction and running.


	2. Chapter 2

Celegorm knows all the corridors and rooms of Nargothrond, better even than Finrod does. But he’s conspicuous now, scarred and in just a nightshirt, and Finrod has the authority to demand information. He can’t hide, not for long, but he ducks into a dimly lit side corridor, waiting for Finrod and Maedhros to pass him. They do, running feet loud on stone.

Celegorm waits a few moments more, then heads for the block of guest rooms where he knows his brothers have to be staying. Ambarussa are in the corridor when he gets there, outwardly silent but more than likely conversing in osanwe. Amras catches his eye with a smile, and Celegorm keeps his breath steady in an attempt to slow his racing heart as they approach.

“Are you finally allowed to be up and about, then?” Amrod asks.

“I am,” Celegorm lies. He gestures to the doors lining either side of the hallway. “Which one is Curufin’s?” They point him to the last door on the left side wall and he nods his thanks as they walk away in the other direction, as eerily in sync as they’ve always been.

He misses the doorknob twice, and frowns. He can see it just fine, why can’t he grab it? It brings to mind lessons back in Tirion, listening to an old tutor drone on and on about healing. The particular lesson he’s thinking of was about depth perception, and he curses himself as an idiot. Of course. One eye can’t see now. He’ll have to adjust before he can function normally again. He tries again, putting his hand where he thinks the knob should be, then moving it a little farther forward, and grins to himself when it’s right.

He slips into Curufin’s room without any fanfare and finds that his brother is too engrossed in his latest project to notice him coming in. Eventually, Curufin turns around. He startles and drops his pen, half out of his chair with a blade in hand before he realizes who it is.

“You scared me,” he accuses, sitting back down.

Celegorm snorts. “I can tell.” He waits a moment for Curufin to relax, then asks, “Where are my clothes?”

Curufin tosses him a travel bag out of a chest and the foot of his bed. He pulls out a plain tunic and leggings and his brother asks, “What’s going on?”

Celegorm is silent for a few moments as he dresses, wondering how much to say. Finally, he settles on, “Meet me at the stables in half an hour. We’re going to Hithlum.”

Curufin doesn’t press the issue. He just hands Celegorm his sword and knives when he’s finished fastening his belt and starts to pack up his things. Celegorm quickly runs a comb through the side of his hair that’s still long, then puts on a muted dark red cloak and pulls the hood low over his face. The burn scars, he knows, are very conspicuous, but he wears green far more often than red, so it should give him a chance to avoid being recognised and reported to their eldest brother.

Curufin glances up from his packing for a moment, his lips pursed in an expression that makes his resemblance to their father all the more obvious. “You look suspicious.”

“But I don’t look like  _ me _ ,” Celegorm says, and Curufin doesn’t dispute that as Celegorm turns and heads out the door.

He doesn’t get very far. When he turns a corner, he runs into someone. The someone grabs his wrist before he can hit the floor and when he gets back to his feet, thanks on his lips, he’s face to face with the same eldest brother he’s trying to avoid.

“What are you doing?” Maedhros demands, folding his arms over his chest.

“Taking a walk,” Celegorm says, but he’s not really trying very hard to lie because Maedhros can always tell anyway.

Maedhros frowns and he sighs heavily, running his hand over his face. “I only want you to be safe. Why are you acting like this?”

Celegorm doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t know what to say. But Maedhros is just standing there, looking a little angry and a lot worried, and he has to say  _ something. _

“I-” Celegorm shakes his head. “Just trust me. Please.”

“With what?” Maedhros pushes.

“ _ Please _ .”

They stand there for a long time, Maedhros just looking at Celegorm and Celegorm doing his best to show Maedhros whatever it is he wants to see. Finally Maedhros sighs and the stiff set to his shoulders drops.

“Fine,” he says, and Celegorm lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “But,” he continues, “you’re going to tell me where you’re going, and when, and you aren’t going alone.”

Maedhros looks like he expects his conditions to be refused. Celegorm thinks about Doriath, about Caranthir and his wife fighting back to back against too many soldiers to have any hope of winning, about Curufin clutching at a would that had already bled too much to be survived, and nods.

“I can do that. Right now I’m going to Hithlum with Curufin and we’re going to try to leave within the hour.”

Maedhros looks surprised for a moment, but he covers it quickly. “How long are you going to stay?”

Celegorm frowns. He hadn’t thought about it that far. “It depends, what’s the date? Who’s king?”

The worry once more dominates Maedhros’s expression. “Uncle Fingolfin is king. He has been for several centuries. Are you sure you’re well enough for this trip?”

Celegorm nods distractedly. “I’m fine. Fingolfin is still king? And the date is…?”

“A week until the New Year. It’s going to be the four hundred fifty sixth year of the sun.”

Celegorm realizes that he’d slept for far longer than he’d thought. If he has any intention of being in Hithlum in time to stop their half-uncle from getting himself killed, he has to hurry. He wouldn’t even bother, but if Fingolfin dies, then Fingon will end up king and he and Maedhros will try to make a stand against Melkor. And if that happens and Fingon dies, Maedhros will blame himself, even if it was a pitched battle from the start and no one should expect to survive fighting all the forces of Angband.

So. Stop Fingolfin from going on a suicide mission so that Maedhros won’t get his best friend killed.

“Celegorm?”

Celegorm jolts out of his reverie when Maedhros’s hand comes to rest on his shoulder. Maedhros looks worried again and really, this is all going to be for naught if he can’t stop making Maedhros worry.

“I’m fine.”

“You said that before and then you stared at nothing for nearly a full minute after I told you the date,” Maedhros says skeptically.

“I really am fine. But I should get going if I want to make it to Hithlum before the New Year’s celebrations.”

Maedhros reluctantly steps aside so he can walk past, and Celegorm starts toward the busier, more public parts of Nargothrond. The market smells of sweet pastries and a plume of smoke wafts up from where a trio of dwarves are roasting a great boar, their fire pit surrounded by eager customers. Celegorm guesses it’s about mid-day, or perhaps very late in the morning. A few people wave as he passes by on his way to the stables. Others gawk at the extent of the scarring on his face, but most are too engrossed in going about their daily errands to pay him any mind, which suits him just fine. He’s not some insect to be ogled by everyone in the city just because he has scars.

He’s perhaps a dozen yards from the stable when he’s bowled over by a dog three times his size. In all the confusion, he’d entirely forgotten about Huan. Huan sniffs at the burn scars and whines, and Celegorm notices that the tips of the dog’s right ear is gone, the hair a little singed.

“Oh,” he mutters, reaching up to pull it close enough for him to examine. It’s not bad, but… “I’m sorry.” He buries his hands in the grey fur on Huan’s neck and lets himself be hauled back to his feet. He runs a brush through Huan’s fur until Curufin arrives, wearing riding leathers and grumbling under his breath. Celebrimbor isn’t with him.

“Where’s Tyelpe?” Celegorm asks.

“He’s staying here. Finduilas adores him and Orodreth and Siraye can definitely use the help. You remember how it was with me and Caranthir, born one right after the other. Having a new baby while your other child is still so young is just asking for a hard time.”

Celegorm groans and pulls himself up onto Huan’s back. “Ugh, don’t remind me. No one got any decent sleep for ages. And then we realized that we could send you to Grandfather Mahtan for an apprenticeship.”

“Hey!” Curufin snaps, offended, as they ride out the city gate.

“It’s true!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Adjusting to your new depth perception after a change in sight? Hell. Or at least, it was for me. When I lost vision in my right eye, it was weeks before I could open a door on the first try every time.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter contains a mention of character death and a semi-graphic description of the same.

The ride to Hithlum is dusty and long, but overall uneventful. They make their way around the west side of Doriath, shimmering faintly green and gold where Melian’s power rings it off from the outside world. They can see Doriath’s border guards watching them, day and night, from the other side. Celegorm thinks he recognizes one of them from Menegroth’s twisting corridors in a battle that hasn’t happened yet.

He digs deeper into the memory on the second night, shaking the dirt out of bedrolls as Curufin minds the pigeon cooking over their fire.

She fought like a demon, the tiny princess under her arm holding the Nauglamir in white knuckled fingers and screaming fit to bring the heavens down. He killed her, took her head off with one swipe of his sword, but Dior had already gutted him, and he was dying even as he chased the princess a few more steps before his legs would no longer hold his weight.

One of his people arrived, an old friend from Orome’s Hunt, and pressed cold hands, shaking as adrenaline faded, to the wound in Celegorm’s abdomen. Celegorm shook his head and pointed after the girl. He tried to speak, but blood burbled up from his lips and he choked instead. Still, his friend nodded, eyes sad, and followed her.

Somehow, seeing a face that he last saw on a victim of decapitation alive and glaring at them brings everything into painfully acute focus, from the feel of the sword’s hilt in his palm to the howl of the wind whipping snow through the nonsensically looping corridors and streets of Menegroth. It hits him like a punch to the gut, and it  _ hurts _ , in the same way it did when all his blood was spilling out onto his lap from an attack he was stupid enough not to dodge.

He didn’t remember dying before. He didn’t remember anything after engaging Dior. He had assumed that he’d died quickly by Dior’s blade, or maybe went to Curufin so that his favorite baby brother would have someone with him in his last moments. But he didn’t. He died alone.

The realization shakes him, and he sits down in the dirt before he can fall. Curufin turns to him upon hearing the thump, one eyebrow raised in idle question. Then he actually looks, and he swears, stirring up dust as he stands, crosses the short distance to Celegorm, and drops to his knees in front of him. “I knew it was too soon to travel,” he mutters under his breath, fingers going to the pulse point on Celegorm’s wrist. Celegorm lets him, passive under Curufin’s attentions.

He died alone. That means Curufin must have as well. He let Curufin die alone because he was chasing after the Silmaril.

That  _ won’t _ happen again.

The amount of conviction in that thought scares him a little, but it shocks him out of his stillness enough to answer his brother’s next question.

“What’s wrong?” Curufin asks. He looks scared, under the concern and confusion.

“I let you die alone,” Celegorm says, and the utter horror in his voice pierces through the fog of memory enough that he notices when Curufin frowns and shakes his head, the expression of confusion a strange thing to see in place of Curufin’s usual scowl.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. We’re both alive and as safe as we can get. No orc or spider or anything else is going to come this near Doriath. You didn’t-”

He cuts off with a squeak as Celegorm comes out of his listless indifference and hugs him. Tight. After a few moments, Curufin relaxes into the embrace and even, a little hesitantly, returns it.

“I’m going to protect you,” Celegorm says against his brother’s shoulder. Then he pulls back and moves to the fire to make sure that their supper doesn’t burn. Curufin follows, still frowning in genuine bafflement.

“From what?”

“The Oath. I’m going to protect all of you from the Oath somehow.”

Curufin stills beside him and sucks in a breath over his teeth. “Father wouldn’t like to hear you say that,” he says after a while.

“I never listened to Father in the first place. And it’s making us make bad choices.” Celegorm chews over the wording of that last sentence for a long time, and it still doesn’t sound entirely right, but he’s a man of action, not words.

“You always make bad choices,” Curufin tries to joke. It sounds forced, but Celegorm makes himself laugh anyway. If he’d wanted to have a heart to heart, he’d have asked Maglor to come to Hithlum with him.

_ You didn’t let Maglor die alone, _ his mind tells him, traitorously. He ignores it and begins mentally reciting old maths lessons that only Caranthir ever liked. If he’s thinking about maths, he can’t think about how he failed.

They eat supper and then lie down to rest. Curufin pulls his bedroll closer to Celegorm’s than he usually would and tucks his head under Celegorm’s chin, and Celegorm lies awake for a long time, watching the stars and trying not to think of anything too important.

When he finally falls asleep, he dreams of an empty palace made of blood, with stars winking menacingly in the red of the walls and floor and ceiling in a gruesome approximation of Varda’s work. His own voice is clinically reciting maths formulas, growing ever louder as time passes, and he can’t escape it no matter where he runs, nor can he escape the liquid red sky that has come down all around him to form his prison. Come morning, he wakes feeling as though he hasn’t rested at all.

They make good time the next few days despite Celegorm’s persistent nightmares, crossing the mountains into Hithlum and finding the road to Barad Eithel. The brush to either side of the dirt track is burnt to ash, and a ways off to the east, toward Angband, charred, leafless trees claw at the grey sky, the ground covered in a layer of black stone born from fire. It’s a chilling reminder of the forest that was there two months ago, dead and ashes since Morgoth broke the Long Peace.

They’re five days hard ride out of Nargothrond when the walls of Barad Eithel become visible in the distance, and by noon of their sixth day, they’re close enough to see the decorations being put up on the city’s spires for the New Year’s Festival, celebratory despite the recent tragedy.

The guards at the gate recognize them, that much is clear, but they still insist on waiting for someone with authority to confirm that Celegorm and Curufin are actually allowed to be here. Celegorm huffs in impatience and swings down off of Huan’s back as one of them runs off into the city. Curufin follows his older brother’s lead, handing the reins of his horse off to the guard, giving a scathing little, “No?” when he protests that he’s not a stable boy. The other guard comes back ten minutes later with Fingon on his heels.

“Thank Orome,” Celegorm groans, because it’s been awkward for the past nine minutes. He doesn’t particularly like Fingon, but the two of them can at least carry on a conversation, which seems far beyond the realm of the guard’s capabilities.

Fingon looks tired, and his perpetual smile drops a little as he looks them over. “Please don’t tell me there’s more bad news.”

“Why would you think that? Can’t we just come for a visit?” Celegorm asks innocently.

Fingon just  _ looks  _ at him, then shakes his head and waves them through the gate. “Well?” He asks after a minute. His timing is impeccable: there are no civilians in hearing distance to be panicked is there really is bad news.

“Your father is planning to do something stupid after the New Year’s Festival,” Celegorm says, quietly so that only Fingon and Curufin can hear. Both look at him in surprise, though Curufin rallies more quickly than their cousin. Fingon is silent for a while, and Celegorm wonders if he’s said too much.

“How would you know?” Fingon says at last, and the scorn is a strange contrast to his usual demeanor.

“I was there when Maedhros got the letter. He mumbles when he reads.” It’s a lie, completely and utterly, and Fingon knows full well that Maedhros doesn’t ever mumble, but he takes it at face value and mulls it over for a minute.

“‘Something stupid’ covers a lot of situations,” he says, because apparently he’s decided not to press for more information about how Celegorm knows this.

“It does, doesn’t it?” Celegorm says. Fingon flinches at the levity in his tone, and he decides not to drag things out too much. His tone becomes serious once more. “Your father is going to try to get himself killed. I want that about as much as you do, albeit for different reasons, so I’m going to stop him.”

“Why?” Fingon demands, nodding to a pair of guards as they enter the palace proper. “You don’t even like us.”

“I always said you were a fool,” Curufin mutters, and the glare Fingon casts him is more exhausted than intimidating.

Fingon stops walking and turns to face Curufin, arms crossed. “Go on, then, tell me what I’ve missed this time.” His tone is full of the false airiness he often adopts when he’s angry, the kind of sharp edged politeness he never did learn to wield properly that only lends credence to Curufin’s accusation.

“You make Maedhros happy. If your father dies, you become king. We saw what being king did to Maglor, and you’re nicer than Maglor. You just don’t understand ruthlessness. The crown would chew you up and spit you out and Maedhros would hate it.”

It isn’t what Celegorm would have said, though he’s glad Curufin is backing him up. Fingon actually handled the kingship fairly well the first time around, for all that Maedhros was the one doing most of the grittier politicking. But Curufin says it all in that haughty, better-than-thou tone that he’s been perfecting since he could talk, and Fingon’s shoulders sag.

“And you do protect each other,” he murmurs, eyes on the floor. “Alright,” he says after a moment, “I’ll trust you. Just this once. But I’m not taking the fall if you cause an incident. And I’m not getting you out of any trouble you get yourself into either.”

“Fine,” Celegorm says.

They shake hands on it, sharing a nod, then Fingon turns back around and continues walking. “Now, I’m sure you already know where your usual guest rooms are, but we’ve changed a few things recently and most of the usual rooms are storage right now. Is there anything in particular you’d like to be close to?”

Celegorm recognises it for what it is: a little bit of assistance, layered in the royal propriety that their previous conversation lacked. “Perhaps the stables,” he says, wondering if Fingon will get the hint.

He does, because he’s not actually as much of a fool as Curufin likes to say. “Do you plan to join Adar on his morning rides, then? He likes to go out to get a moment away from all his responsibilities before breakfast.”

Breakfast, Celegorm knows, is very strictly at the same time each morning, as this is a Noldorin city. “I think I may.”

Fingon nods and pulls a key from his pocket, of the very generic kind that could probably open any number of guest room doors within the palace, and hands it to Celegorm, gesturing at a pair of doors. “Good luck,” he says quietly as he walks away.

Celegorm doesn’t have the heart to tell him how much they’re going to need it, and he wonders when he started being nice to any of their cousins except for Aredhel. He opens one of the doors and tosses the key to Curufin, but his brother follows him inside and twists the door’s latch to locked.

When he speaks, it’s a snappish demand: “What in Eru’s name was that?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I had a plan for this chapter to advance the plot. Then I pushed that back to the next chapter so I could add angst. Also, Celegorm is an unreliable narrator and I refuse to believe he ever learned Beren's name.

Celegorm just shakes his head and flops back onto the bed. “Later,” he mutters, kicking off his boots and turning over so that his back is to Curufin.

“Now,” Curufin growls. Celegorm hears his brother’s boots click on the polished stone of the floor, and then the bedding is ripped out from under him and he’s dragged out of the bed. Curufin looks entirely unsympathetic as he gets up, glaring daggers.

“What was all that about Fingolfin getting himself killed?” he demands, tossing the bunch of blankets back onto the bed.

Celegorm debates over what to tell him for a long while. Curufin doesn’t move the entire time, his foot beating out a steady  _ tap, tap, tap _ on the marble tile. Finally, he decides to just say everything.

He takes a deep breath. “Fifty years ago Morgoth broke the peace and the only injury I got getting our people out of Himlad was a twisted ankle.”

Curufin snorts and rolls his eyes, annoyed and disbelieving, but he thankfully doesn’t interrupt. Celegorm isn’t sure he’ll be able to get it all out if he has to stop.

“Fingolfin died trying to fight Morgoth on his own. We went to Nargothrond and lived there for a while, then Luthien of Doriath showed up with her human lover. They were on a quest to get a Silmaril from Morgoth’s crown so Thingol would let them get married.”

Curufin’s eyes widen by a tiny fraction and he presses his lips together. The  _ tap, tap, tap  _ of his boot on the floor ceases.

“We kidnapped her and held her for a while. Finrod went with her human and got killed by Sauron, then Huan let her escape and she went to get her human. They snuck into Angband and she put Morgoth to sleep and they used a knife they stole from you to pry a Silmaril out of his crown.”

Curufin mouths a correction:  _ Thauron _ . Celegorm has never done what their father wanted and isn’t about to start now, so he ignores it. His brother is beginning to look pale and his fingers are digging into his arms where they’re crossed over his chest, but Celegorm has to keep going or he’ll never get the rest of the words out.

“They left and the human got his hand bitten off by a wolf, and they both died. Then Luthien convinced Mandos to send them both back as mortals. They got the Silmaril back from the wolf because Huan had killed it and they had a son and Thingol got killed by some dwarves because he cheated them. Nargothrond fell somewhere in there and Gil-galad ended up with Cirdan.

“Also, before Nargothrond fell, Fingon and Maedhros put together an army against Morgoth. They lost and Fingon got killed, but they did some damage. Then Luthien’s son became king of Doriath and he had some kids of his own and eventually Maedhros tried convincing him to give up the Silmaril.”

Curufin is positively grey-faced now, and his hands are hanging limp at his sides. He’s probably thinking the same thing Celegorm is: a descendant of Thingol would never listen to a son of Feanor.

“He wouldn’t, and we went in and sacked Menegroth. I’m not sure how that turned out, but last I saw, Cananthir and Herenyanel were surrounded and you were bleeding out on the floor. I don’t know where Maedhros or Maglor or the twins were. I fought with Luthien’s son. I killed him but I was stupid and didn’t dodge and I was dying and I chased after the girl who had the Silmaril but I died and I don’t know if we won or lost and-”

Celegorm breaks off when he realizes that there’s a lump in his throat and he’s talking too fast, and Curufin sinks to his knees beside him. He’s worryingly pale and he’s staring at empty air like he can’t be bothered to focus.

“Then- I woke up in Nargothrond a week ago,” Celegorm finishes, in a high, choked whisper.

“Tyelpe?” Curufin asks thickly, his voice heavy with dread.

Oh. That’s why his normally unflappable brother seems so upset. Celegorm shakes his head. “I don’t- We got kicked out of Nargothrond after the Luthien Incident, but Tyelpe stayed. I- there weren’t a lot of people who survived the fall, and he’d disowned us already, and getting information wasn’t easy...”

Curufin looks hopeful for a moment, and Celegorm hates himself for what he has to say. “I died before I could find out what happened to him.”

Curufin gasps like he can’t breathe and curls in on himself, his hair falling forward to obscure his face. Celegorm doesn’t know what to do, Curufin hasn’t cried since he was an elfling and even then he was mostly just angry, not sad.

He doesn’t know what to do, so he only sits there and runs his hand up and down Curufin’s back in a way that he hopes is soothing. After a bit, there’s a light knock at the door and an unfamiliar female voice, likely a servant, says that they’re expected at dinner with the king in a few minutes.

“Alright,” Celegorm calls back, then listens to soft footsteps retreating down the hall.

They’re going to be late, if they make it at all, because Curufin is still doubled over on the floor, his silence broken up only by desperate gasps. To his credit, he pulls himself together remarkably quickly after the servant’s announcement. He’s still too pale and his eyes are shining, but he does an excellent job of hiding the tear tracks and redness with the makeup he finds in a drawer of the vanity mirror in one corner of the room and he pulls his hair up into his usual simply braided style while Celegorm puts his boots back on.

To Celegorm’s eyes, he still looks like he might shatter at any moment, but he pulls his features into an annoyed scowl and holds his head high as he walks out the door and toward the little private dining room where they’ll be eating with Fingon and Fingolfin.

They’re late, as Celegorm expected, but it looks like not too late. Fingon is making idle chatter with his father as the two of them wait, and neither of them have anything on their plates yet. Both look up as they enter. Fingolfin’s eyes go wide when he sees the scarring on Celegorm’s face, but Fingon’s already seen that. And since he’s more perceptive than people give him credit for and his father is distracted, his eyes jump to Curufin, pleasant expression crinkling with concern.

He opens his mouth to speak, but Curufin shakes his head minutely and he closes it again.

Fingolfin coughs lightly and quits staring. “Sit,” he invites, gesturing at the table.

The entire meal is awkward. Fingolfin is genuinely trying to draw them into conversation, and Fingon makes more slightly strained small talk to fill the silence when it doesn’t work, but Curufin hasn’t said a word since he asked about Tyelpe’s fate and Celegorm is really more concerned with the fact that Curufin is barely eating anything—again—than talking with relatives he only marginally likes on a good day.

Eventually, a few servants whisk the platters away. They’ll be back in a few minutes with dessert, but in the meantime, they’re left in silence.

“Are you alright?” Fingon asks after several tense seconds, directing the question at Curufin, who’s still frighteningly pale and quiet. Fingon sounds genuinely concerned, and he doesn’t follow it up with something silly to diffuse the tension like he usually would. “You don’t look well,” he says instead.

“I’m fine,” Curufin says flatly.

Fingon shakes his head. “You didn’t eat and you haven’t said a thing since dinner started.”

“I’m fine,” Curufin repeats, and there’s a little more force behind it this time. “Leave me be.”

Fingon looks uncertain, but he nods, and a moment later the servants return and set out dessert. Dessert stays just as awkward as it’s been throughout the entire meal, but at least Curufin eats it, though from his expression, it’s mostly done to prove Fingon wrong.

Fingon walks them back to their rooms when dessert is over, seeming uneasy in the quiet hallways. “If you need anything,” he says when they reach the door, meeting Curufin’s eyes as he speaks, “just say so.”

Curufin scowls. “I told you, I’m fine.”

“No,” Fingon snaps, “you aren’t. Obviously. I wouldn’t even care since you’re being such a bastard about it, but you’re here to make sure my father doesn’t get killed. If you mess up because your pride won’t let you ask for help, I’m not going to be happy about it.”

The sharp beratement reminds Celegorm of Maedhros, and he’s abruptly reminded that Fingon is older than either of them. And if nothing else, their father succeeded in drilling such Noldorin values as respect for one’s elders into his head.

Curufin doesn’t seem to care. He scoffs. “You wouldn’t hurt us.”

Fingon meets his eyes steadily, no longer their happy-go-lucky cousin but the Crown Prince of the Noldor who crossed the Helcaraxe and survived. “If your father’s death had been my fault, you’d have killed me. No doubts, no hesitation. I’d hate myself, and Maedhros would hate me, but you’re only two people, and we’re already barred from ever going back to Aman. Isn’t revenge what this family is all about?”

He turns on his heel and walks away without giving them a chance to respond.

“I’m sorry,” Celegorm blurts before he can get all the way down the corridor.

Fingon stops. “Prove it. Figure out what’s wrong with him and fix it so that you can save my father.” And then he keeps walking.

Curufin is looking at him, in the way he does whenever Celegorm takes someone else’s side against him. Celegorm hates that look, but the worst part is that he can’t even blame Fingon for the threat. If their positions were reversed, he doesn’t think he’d be nearly so accommodating.

Celegorm unlocks the door and waits for Curufin to go ahead of him, then follows him inside and shuts the door, resting his forehead on the wood and taking a deep breath. When he turns around, Curufin is standing in the middle of the room, expression inscrutable.

“Diplomacy,” Celegorm growls, and starts pacing because this guest room is incredibly austere and there’s nothing to throw.

Curufin sneers. “You’re the last one who should be advocating for diplomacy.”

Celegorm stops pacing and faces Curufin. “I don’t think you realize the stakes here,” he says shortly, not quite loud enough to be shouting. “Treat this like we only have one chance. Because if Fingolfin gets killed, a lot of bad things are going to happen. And I’m pretty sure it was just a fluke I ended up here anyway, so we probably really do only have one chance at fixing things.”

Curufin, surprisingly, looks contrite. He sits down on the bed, staring at the floor. “Sorry,” he mutters. “Tyelpe’s in Nargothrond and you said it’s going to fall and…” He drops his head into his hands, and Celegorm instantly feels bad about scolding him.

He goes to sit beside him and puts an arm across his back. “Not yet,” he says. “Not at all if I can do anything about it. I know you’re worried, but Tyelpe’s in one of the safest places in all of Beleriand right now. The only place safer would be Doriath or wherever Turgon is.”

Curufin takes a deep breath that shakes a little and straightens up, erasing every trace of upset from his expression. “Where is Turgon? Did you ever find that out before you died?”

Celegorm shakes his head and lets the obvious change of subject go. “No, I don’t think anyone did. The only one who ever left was Aredhel, and she disappeared years ago.”

Curufin nods. “I remember.” They’d missed her departure from Himlad by a matter of days, and Celegorm has wondered ever since where she went. Of course, he’s never been able to find out, or else he’d tell someone so that Turgon can be pestered into joining the fight against Morgoth. Some of the little lordlings he had with him when he came off the Ice were better than decent with a sword.

Curufin yawns, and Celegorm doesn’t have to look out the window to know that it’s well past dark. He wonders if it’s Curufin’s turn to have the strange nightmares, then feels like a horrible person for even thinking it. He stands up and fixes the bedding, then strips down to his undershirt and goes to lie down on the side of the bed Curufin isn’t sitting on, because there aren’t any candles lit to blow out to signal Curufin that he needs to go to bed.

Curufin sits there for a few more minutes before he changes into a nightshirt. When he comes back to the bed, Celegorm holds the covers open in invitation. Curufin slides in, buries his face in Celegorm’s chest, and sobs.


	5. Chapter 5

The next day is the first day of the New Year’s Festival.

Celegorm wakes before dawn and slips out, leaving Curufin to sleep partially because he needs it and partially because Curufin is going to insist on a bath after days of traveling and a night of tears and Celegorm doesn’t want to be dragged into a tub that’s as much fancy salts and oils as it is water. He’s perfectly happy with the little clear pond on the palace grounds, and there’s the added bonus of drawing outrage from all the servants whenever he bathes there.

He arms himself and dresses in muted navy blues he took from Maglor years ago that he thinks look garbage on him but make it easy to sneak through the sharp early morning shadows, then makes his way to the stables. Huan is rolling around on a patch of lawn not far away, but as far as Celegorm can see, he isn’t doing anything he shouldn’t, so he leaves him be and settles himself behind a barrel to wait for Fingolfin.

He waits longer than he’d expected to before Fingolfin comes out in plain black riding leathers with a little pack slung over his shoulder and one knife on his belt. Celegorm can’t say he’s seen his uncle often since he arrived in Beleriand, but he’s sure that he usually looks more kingly. Right now, he just looks like Fingolfin-

No.

He looks like Nolofinwe. He looks like he did in Tirion before everything fell apart and grandfather was killed and they all fled to Beleriand under Doom. And isn’t that a joy to think about: when Fingolfin finally looks like himself, it’s when he’s getting ready to go out and challenge a Vala.

Celegorm follows close behind Fingolfin’s horse, careful not to be seen as he trails him down a meandering path through the trees. The path goes west and north for a mile or two, then turns east toward Angband so sharply that Celegorm almost misses the corner. After a while, Celegorm’s stomach makes him aware that it’s past breakfast time, but he ignores it for the moment. He has bigger concerns than a late breakfast.

Fingolfin seems to have noticed the time as well, for he guides his horse off the path through the thin underbrush. Celegorm goes to the trees to keep following, and after a few minutes, Fingolfin comes to a little meadow. It’s small, really not much more than a grassy little clearing, painted green-gold in the light that comes after dawn but before the sun has fully risen.

Celegorm presses himself back against a tree’s trunk, and the difference in temperature between sun and shadow is almost jarring. He watches Fingolfin turn his horse loose to graze and sit down in a beam of sunlight. He’s slightly envious when his uncle pulls bread and fruit from his pack, but he again pushes down the feeling. He can worry about food later.

Fingolfin eats his breakfast, then just sits in the sunlight for a long while. Then, without giving any warning, he stands and mounts his horse and rides back toward Barad Eithel much faster than he’d been coming this way. Celegorm doesn’t try to keep up; he knows full well that he wouldn’t be able to. Instead, he takes his bow from his back and checks the string, then begins searching out a rabbit or a bird he can hunt for his breakfast.

By the time he makes it back to the city, the festival is in full swing and he’s managed to get himself soaking wet after tripping into a puddle. It’s nearly lunchtime and his stomach is growling because he gave up on the rabbit he was chasing as not worth it when it dove into a warren and his momentum sent him flying into a thorny briar, so he changes into dry clothes and wanders through the market stalls until he finds someone selling something that tastes good.

Even with as much riding on this visit as there is, it’s nice to be at a festival again. It’s been a long time, and while Himlad had more than its share of parties and hunts before Dagor Bragollach, parties and hunts aren’t the same as a proper holiday festival. The decorations are predominantly blue, as befits a New Year’s celebration, and people are selling hot pastries and soups and various other wares, from little copper-a-piece wood carvings to richly dyed and embroidered blankets.

He ends up buying a bowl of venison stew and a piece of heavy bread, then climbs up onto a low roof to eat without being pushed around by the crowd on the street. He’s also been convinced into buying some little metal hair beads.

The woman who’s selling them claims they’re handmade from top quality silver, but his father was the greatest smith in history and even he, who’s been in a forge maybe a week out of his whole life, can tell she’s a bald-faced liar. They’re just some sparkly grey alloy that his father would never deign to so much as look at, and the way they’re all exactly the same says they’re probably mass produced and worth maybe a quarter of what he paid.

But it’s a festival, and arguing with the bead lady was more fun than he’s had outside of a hunt in… a long time. He continues to make his way around the market part of the festival until it starts to get dark, occasionally buying something interesting or strange. The sky is a breathtaking swirl of violet and orange as the sun begins to sink below the horizon and sellers pack up their wares for the evening and everyone moves to the city square.

Most everyone is making the traditional offerings to the Valar, which was never something his family did back in Aman, but Celegorm finds himself mouthing along with the prayers to bless the upcoming year, and even joining in with the ones to Orome. Then the square stills and an air of waiting comes over everything. People talk softly, eyes cast upward to the rapidly darkening sky.

Celegorm turns to the man next to him to ask what’s going on, but before he can open his mouth, a low whistle fills the air, and Celegorm looks around in alarm only to find that everyone is still looking at the sky. The whistle quiets abruptly and there’s an instant of silence as everyone watches with bated breath. Then-

The sky explodes in color.

Celegorm knows his expression is probably that of an elfling on his begetting day. The display is completely dazzling, and he wonders who came up with  _ that _ . The less logical part of him thinks for a moment that perhaps his father isn’t dead after all. Of course, that’s a ridiculous thought, and he dismisses it immediately after. Still, his father would have loved this.

Now that he’s watching for it, he can see the thin trails of smoke as things fly into the air. Before they can come down, they burst into sparks of every color under the sun, swirling out into simple shapes with loud pops and bangs. The sparks hang in the air for a moment, and when they start to fade, the next smoke trail begins.

“It’s brilliant work,” someone says next to him, barely audible over the loud sounds, and he jumps, heart going a mile a minute. He looks over and realizes it’s just Curufin and wills himself to relax.

“Is it?” he asks, turning back to the sky, and even though he’s shouting, another round of rapid pops nearly drowns out his words.

Curufin nods in his periphery and leans close to speak into his ear so that he doesn’t have to shout. “They’re calling them fireworks. I got a look at the shells in the forge earlier. Apparently, some powders that can be produced aren’t just flammable, they’re explosive. Put enough of them together with a few chemicals, and…” Curufin gestures at the sky, currently awash with concentric circles of gold sparks. He sounds a little jealous and very frustrated. “It’s an obvious continuation of Father’s research with light.”

Ah. That would be the reason for the jealousy. Curufin has boxes upon boxes upon boxes of their father’s notes, a lifetime of work with all manner of sciences, and someone else figured this out before he did. In a way, Celegorm understands. Their father left a lot of legacy to live up to. But still. “You can’t discover everything,” he says, his tone flat and matter of fact because Curufin would take anything else as patronizing.

“I suppose,” Curufin admits after a long pause, grudging. Then, a little smugness slipping into his voice, “I have discovered a lot of things, haven’t I.”

He has. He’s just as brilliant as whoever came up with the fireworks. Probably moreso, not that Celegorm is ever going to say so out loud. Curufin doesn’t need his ego to get any bigger than it already is.

The fireworks display goes on for a while longer, but eventually, it gets cold and the fireworks end with a dramatic finale and everyone goes inside where it’s warm. Curufin startles to find Fingon sitting at the desk in their room, though Celegorm isn’t nearly as surprised as he could be.

“Well?” he asks expectantly.

Curufin visibly tempers his annoyance and sits down on the other chair in the room. Celegorm sits on the edge of the bed and begins thinking through his anwer. Not that there’s much to think of, admittedly. Fingolfin is king, so they can’t actually stop him from doing anything he’s really determined to do. If he goes and gets killed, then Fingon is in charge, which would be good since Fingon was more rational about this whole making a stand against Morgoth situation the first time, except that they need the ruling monarch to be the rational one and they need Fingolfin to be the ruling monarch, two things which seem mutually exclusive at the moment. Which brings him back to the fact that Fingolfin is king and they don’t have any control over what he does.

“Well,” he finally decides upon, though it’s more of a heavy sigh than an actual word. He scrubs his hands over his face, then meets Fingon’s eyes. “I wish you were the king,” he says, bluntly honest.

Fingon shakes his head. “No. Not unless my father dies.”

Celegorm waves him off. “No, I know, but at least if  _ you  _ wanted to challenge Morgoth, you’d write to Maedhros and build up an army first.”

Fingon manages to go sickly pale despite the fact that his skin is Vanyarin brown. He sways in his seat and Celegorm shoots to his feet, hands on his cousin’s shoulders to steady him. Even Curufin is up, looking at Fingon with barely hidden concern. “Morgoth?” Fingon says weakly after a moment.

“Morgoth.”

“Oh.”

Fingon’s voice is tiny, little more than a whimper, and he looks like he’s about to keel over where he’s sitting. Celegorm isn’t entirely sure what to do about that, so he settles for tightening his grip on Fingon’s shoulders and pushing him back so that he’s leaning fully on the chair.

“I’m fine,” he manages after a while. His breath is strictly measured and his spine is straight and his face is blank, and Celegorm recognizes the posture as the one that means  _ I’m at the end of my rope and it’s fraying, but damned if my pride will let you see it _ . He’s used it himself a few times, and seen it often enough from his brothers. But Fingon sounds steadier now, so he lets it go and moves back to the bed.

“We need you in charge without your father actually being removed from the throne,” Curufin says, returning the conversation to its earlier topic as he goes back to his seat.

Fingon is silent for a very long moment and when he speaks, his expression and tone are so thoughtful that Celegorm isn’t sure he’s entirely aware that he is speaking. “What about a regency?”

“A regency only happens when the reigning monarch is too incapacitated to rule soundly,” Curufin says, all but rejecting the idea.

Fingon looks extremely reluctant to be admitting to the truth in Curufin’s words, but he nods. “You’re right, of course. But it’s the only thing I can think of short of a nonviolent coup that might put me on the throne without killing my father.”

“Incapacitated?” Celegorm asks, beginning to sound thoughtful himself.

Curufin nods. “Very sick or injured or in a questionable mental state. Or underage, but that doesn’t really apply here.”

Celegorm nods, and he can feel Fingon’s eyes on him as he crosses to the wardrobe and pulls out his good quiver. He brings it back to show Curufin and Fingon and twists and pushes a few of the decorative rivets set into the leather and a hidden compartment pops open. It’s a clever bit of engineering that he’d done entirely on his own a few years back to hold onto something he really shouldn’t have in the first place.

In the compartment are three heavy black orc arrows with broad, jagged heads and ruffled but serviceable fletching.

“I think we can manage incapacitated.”


	6. Chapter 6

Fingon walks out. He looks at the arrows, meets Celegorm’s eyes for the smallest fraction of a second, and walks out, hands shaking so badly he’s hardly able to manage the door.

And of course, Celegorm goes chasing after him down the wide, empty stone halls. It’s mostly quiet, this late in the evening, with everyone who’s staying in the palace sleeping so they’ll have the energy to enjoy the festival tomorrow. The quiet would help more if Fingon’s footsteps didn’t echo all through all the corridors and make it impossible to tell which direction he’s walking.

Celegorm tunes out the headache-inducing cacophony and makes his best guess as to where Fingon is. It seems he’s in luck, because it’s not five minutes before he catches up with Fingon as the other comes out from behind a tapestry. Celegorm watches with mild interest as Fingon slides a panel of the wall shut and adjusts the tapestry over it. He didn’t know Barad Eithel had any real secret passages, but it is a Noldorin city and Noldor do love their marvels of engineering, so he probably should have assumed.

Fingon turns around and startles when he sees Celegorm, hands flying to his heart with a little gasp. Then he registers who it is and his arms drop back to his side and he shakes his head. “No,” he says, with a remarkable amount of conviction for someone who looked about to jump out of his skin three seconds ago. Then he shoulders his way past Celegorm and continues walking in the other direction.

Celegorm catches him by the wrist before he can go very far. “Fingon,” he says, the word firm but not entirely ungentle.

“I don’t want to talk to you,” Fingon bites out, but Celegorm’s hand on his wrist tightens just a little and he stops trying to pull away.

“Fine, but I’m going to talk to you whether you want me to or not. Your father is determined to get himself killed in a stupidly heroic way. He’s going to go out there and challenge Morgoth to single combat and you’re  _ never going to see him again _ .” 

It’s mean. He doesn’t have to look at the anguished expression it puts on Fingon’s face to know that. That doesn’t mean he's not going to push that weak point as much as he can get away with and then a little more.

“I want your father dead as much as you do.” It feels like this is the millionth time he’s reiterating this point in the short time they’ve been here, but Fingon still hasn’t gotten it through his head. “A regency is our best chance at getting that. I suggested something that will give us what we need. Your father will be alive and you’ll be regent and you can get started on building an army so that when your father gets back on the throne he’ll have a reasonable way to do something against Morgoth.”

“You can’t shoot my father,” Fingon says stubbornly. “You can’t shoot the king.”

“Then what do you expect me to do?” Celegorm demands. “Because really, I’m open to suggestions.” He waits several seconds, but Fingon doesn’t say anything. “If your father- if the king was to suddenly fall ill or something right after me and Curufin arrived, what do you think everyone would say? Who would they blame? They’d blame us, the sons of Feanor. The  _ kinslayers _ .”

Fingon flinches. Good. He was there at Alqualonde just like the rest of them, but he’s the crown prince, so Valar forbid anyone even suggest that he’s as guilty as any of Feanor’s people for the blood spilled that night.

“Orc arrows make it look obvious who was attacking and why. Everyone will assume that it’s just another orc attack and if your father gets sick after, then that’s to be expected since orcs are known for using poison.”

Celegorm gives Fingon a few moments to consider this. Fingon still looks reluctant, but Celegorm thinks maybe he’s coming around to the idea.

“Poison?” he says at last, very hesitant.

Celegorm nods. “If it doesn’t look bad, then there won’t be a need for a regency. Maedhros rearranged the entire continent from an infirmary bed a month after you cut him down from Thangorodrim. Your father is just as stubborn and just as strong. If he’s conscious, he’ll be trying to rule. And he’d probably still be doing an alright job of it, honestly.”

“Right,” Fingon agrees, though his heart isn’t in it.

“Look, didn’t you say this family is all about revenge? I’m pretty sure you’re a part of this family, and if it seems like your father is dying from orc poison, you can play up the revenge angle when you start putting together an army. Do something to Morgoth because he did something to you.”

“What makes you so sure I’m going to make an army?” Fingon asks irritably.

“You will.”

That only serves to frustrate Fingon more, and he pulls his arm out of Celegorm’s grip and walks a few steps away. He turns around and walks back. He turns around again and starts to pace in earnest.

“You can’t be completely sure this won’t kill him,” he says, voice an odd mix between dejected and angry.

Celegorm steps forward and puts his hands on Fingon’s shoulders to stop the pacing. Fingon meets his eyes and he drops his arms back to his sides. “You’re right. I can’t. But I’m a really good shot and I know more than a little about herbs and poisons and all that. It’ll only be for long enough for you to get this army thing going, that’s two or three months at the absolute most, and then we’ll let him get better and hand over the kingship. Maybe a scare is what he needs to be rational again.”

Fingon is quiet for a while. Then, “Maybe.”

Celegorm grins. Fingon hits him for it, hard.

“You don’t get to smile about this,” he snaps.

Celegorm has to admit that it was in bad taste, but Eru, when did Fingon get that strong? He nods, bringing his hand up to prod gingerly at his cheek. He hisses. He’d have a spectacular bruise come morning if not for the burn scar. As it is, he’s fairly certain scarring and bruising are mutually exclusive, but it’s still going to hurt for a good long while.

“Right. Sorry.”

Fingon inclines his head, accepting Celegorm’s apology and not quite offering one of his own. “What’s the plan?” he asks.

“Can you go on your father’s morning ride with him tomorrow?”

Fingon nods.

“Good. We can make it look like an ambush, if you can act frightened.”

Fingon looks like he wants to take offense to that, but apparently decides it’s not worth the effort. Still, he scoffs. “Of course I can.”

Oh, right. Fingon did a stint with a theatre troupe back in Aman. He was good right up until he decided to take up painting instead. Fingon always was ridiculously talented at any artistic pursuit but music.

“Alright. So you’ll ride out tomorrow morning, I’ll shoot your father and try not to shoot you, and then you’ll come back to the city and act like you don’t know exactly what’s going on.”

Fingon nods, even though he looks like he’d rather do absolutely anything else. “Alright.”

There’s a moment of awkwardness where neither of them says anything, then Fingon sighs, all the tension bleeding out of him. “I’m going to bed,” he says, quietly.

“Goodnight,” Celegorm says, and it’s as close to a peace offering as he’s going to get.

“Goodnight,” Fingon returns, inclining his head in acknowledgement of their fragile truce. He opens his mouth to speak as he begins to turn away, then shakes his head and closes it. Celegorm watches him walk away, wondering what he was going to say.

It mustn’t have been important, he decides, and stubbornly ignores the slight sinking feeling in his stomach that tells him he doesn’t actually believe what he’s telling himself. Their family’s luck isn’t good enough for that.

It takes nearly a half hour for him to find his way back to their room, as he wasn’t really paying attention to where he was going when he was chasing after fingon and he hasn’t been to Barad Eithel often enough to know the layout the way he does in Himlad or Nargothrond. And besides that, he’s angry with Fingon, which is making it more difficult to focus on the corridors. He doesn’t have the slightest clue as to why, but he is.

When he does get to their room, Curufin is sitting at the vanity in sleep clothes, untangling his hair with a comb that looks too expensive to be one he found in the guest room. He goes to stand behind Curufin and his brother pauses, meeting his eyes in the mirror. After a few seconds, Curufin hands him the comb and Celegorm begins working through the knots like he had when they were young.

Curufin is like their father in most aspects, but his hair is incredibly fine, like Celegorm’s. Like their grandmother, Finwe used to say, when they would sit at his feet and have him braid their hair in the elaborate styles he was so adept at. He hits a particularly bad tangle and Curufin hisses in pain, pulling away. Celegorm stills.

“Be gentle,” Curufin warns, and he may be their father’s image but he sounds just like their mother when he says that. She used to do the same thing when Celegorm was angry, hand him a comb and sit down in front of him and tell him to be gentle, to force him to calm down for long enough to think. He misses it, misses  _ her _ , more than he’ll ever admit.

Part of him wonders why he’s thinking so much about Aman tonight. First their father and the fireworks, then Fingon and his artistic pursuits, and now their grandfather and mother. He doesn’t let himself wonder long. He clamps down on the thought as he twists Curufin’s hair into a single braid so that it won’t tangle while he sleeps, pushing away the nostalgia. It won’t help.

He ties off the braid and Curufin turns around in the chair to face him. “What happened?”

Celegorm purses his lips and tries not to sound petulant. “Fingon agreed.”

Curufin’s brows go up. “Then why do you seem upset?”

Celegorm shrugs and starts to change into his own nightclothes. “No idea.”

Curufin sighs and goes to sit in the middle of the bed. “Come here,” he commands, patting the spot in front of him. Celegorm does so without complaint and Curufin runs his hands over his back and his shoulders.

Celegorm lets all the tension melt away with a slow exhale and folds forward. When he speaks, his voice is muffled against the bed. “I’m sorry, this shouldn’t be your problem.”

“You died and woke up in Nargothrond. I don’t think it should be your problem either,” Curufin says, and he sounds amused. It’s almost enough to make Celegorm turn around and look at him, but he’s gotten comfortable where he is and he’s loathe to move, regardless of the fact that it really shouldn’t be even remotely comfortable.

Curufin continues to run his hands lightly, slowly over Celegorm’s back as he talks. “Listen, the way I see it, it’s simple. We make sure Fingolfin doesn’t do something stupid and get himself killed, and as long as he’s alive, it doesn’t matter what Fingon thinks about it. And maybe there’s something you aren’t telling me and Fingon’s feelings actually do matter, but I think you would be trying harder to stop him from getting upset with you if that were true.”

Celegorm makes a sound of agreement.

“Alright. So we keep Fingolfin alive and Fingon in charge, and then we worry about all the other things like Nargothrond and Doriath and anything else I’m forgetting at the moment that you said happened.”

Celegorm hums appreciatively. “I knew there had to be a reason people always think you’re the smart one.”

“Of course there is,” Curufin says. Then he stands up. “You don’t want to fall asleep like that or you’re going to have a bunch of new aches in the morning.”

Celegorm groans, but Curufin is probably right, so he pushes himself up. Curufin is standing at the edge of the bed with a corner of the blanket in his hands and when Celegorm moves he pulls back the covers and climbs into the bed. Celegorm looks at him and then at all the candles still burning around the room.

“You can’t sleep with the lights on,” he says, and goes to blow them out.

“Maybe you can’t, but I absolutely can.” Then, in the dimming light, he looks uncertain for a moment. “Are you sure you can shoot accurately with only one eye?”

“Yes.” Celegorm only hesitates a little, but it’s enough for Curufin to give him a knowing look. He blows out the last candle and goes to the bed. He hopes he can still shoot accurately enough for this to work, because there isn’t time to come up with anything else. He really, really hopes he can.


	7. Chapter 7

Celegorm wakes before dawn, and this time Curufin is up with him, grumbling about it all the while. They’re going hunting, he’d told the guards working the night shift at the northernmost gate of the city. The pair had looked askance at Curufin, fully dressed but otherwise still more asleep than awake, but shrugged and opened the gate enough to let them out.

“It’s still dark,” Curufin mutters for at least the third time, yawning. His fingers are buried in Huan’s fur as Celegorm leads the way ever deeper into the wood outside of Barad Eithel, and while Celegorm insisted that he change into hunting leathers, his hair is still in it’s frizzing sleep braid, which makes him look a lot younger than he actually is.

Celegorm turns to look at his brother in the sliver of moonlight that’s managed to break through the canopy. “How is it that you can stay up until all hours of the night in the forge but struggle to get up early when there’s actually something on the line?”

“That’s-” he begins, but cuts himself off with another yawn and settles for a rude gesture instead.

Celegorm rolls his eyes and focuses on finding his way to the clearing where Fingolfin stopped for breakfast the day before. It takes a while, and after a few stumbles he realizes that it’s a lot easier to see in the daylight than it is in the dark. Eventually, though, he manages to get where he’s trying to go. It’s by pure dumb luck and a tumble down a short hill that looked farther away than it actually was, but they’re in the clearing, and he’s long since learned to take his victories where he can.

Huan and Curufin follow him more carefully, the latter muttering about how he’s “too tired to be amused and worried at the same time, damn you.”

“Are you alright?” he calls quietly, holding on to a branch as he comes down the unexpectedly steep hill in a controlled slide.

“Fine,” Celegorm grunts, picking himself up and gathering the dropped arrows from his quiver. The orc arrows are still in their hidden compartment, but all the rest scattered in the grass as soon as he hit flat ground. It’s more of an annoyance than anything, but the sun is just beginning to come up over the horizon and he needs to get to a good vantage point before Fingon and Fingolfin come along, and having to pick up his arrows is a waste of time.

He makes sure his quiver is secure and gets ready to climb a tree.

“Wait,” Curufin says, looking somewhat more awake now that it isn’t pitch dark. He produces a small container and a raggedy paintbrush from somewhere in his multitude of pockets. He opens the container and Celegorm sees that it’s black paint.

“Orcs have black blood,” Curufin says by way of explanation.

“Oh, good idea,” Celegorm says, then presses his mouth shut and closes his eyes as Curufin dips the brush into the paint and flings it at him. It’ll lend weight to their story of coming across a group of orcs during a hunting trip, even though the paint is cold and a little bit itchy in the early morning chill.

Curufin nods distractedly. He doesn’t put the paint away but he closes the lid and holds on to the container with a white knuckle grip as Celegorm starts to climb. He doesn’t get far up before he grabs for a branch and misses. Terror dips in his stomach for half an instant, then he plummets the six or seven feet to the ground. He hears Curufin cry out in alarm as he hits the ground and all the breath is forced out of him.

When he opens his eyes a few seconds later, Curufin is leaning over him, wide eyed and frightened.

“What happened?” he demands, a hair’s breadth from panic.

“I misjudged the distance,” Celegorm grits out. It’s more breathless than he would like and he can’t help wincing as he sits up. “I’ll live.” Which is entirely true, even if his back is probably going to be black and blue for weeks.

“This is the second time you’ve fallen because you can’t see properly. This is a bad idea.”

“Noted.”

But Celegorm ignores Curufin’s worry. He wants to be up the tree before he stiffens up so much he can’t climb.

“This whole thing,” Curufin continues, gesturing at everything and nothing, “is a terrible idea.”

“Well, it’s the only one we have,” Celegorm says tetchily, settling himself in some branches so that he can’t be seen from below. “Now go make it look like an orc pack has passed through.”

Curufin looks like he wants to argue, but he just nods sharply and stalks off into the woods with Huan to make their story look as true as possible. Celegorm watches him leave, then settles back in the tree to wait, one dark, wicked looking arrow loosely nocked. The other two are in his quiver, an instant condemnation should anyone see.

His heart thrums a steady beat against his sternum as the sun climbs slowly higher. The pain in his back has settled to a sharp ache, thumping with every heartbeat and worsening if he moves too much. It’s not pleasant, but it’s a welcome distraction from what he’s about to do. His father always emphasized family, and while that never really included Fingolfin, their uncle is still undeniably family, and it goes against every one of the morals he’s managed to keep to be intentionally harming him.

He waits fifteen or twenty minutes before he hears Fingon and Fingolfin coming up the trail into the clearing, and another minute longer before he can see them. Celegorm likes to think patience is one of his virtues, as a hunter, but also thinks this is probably the longest twenty minutes of his entire life.

They sit down in the grass with their breakfast. Celegorm sees a flash of Curufin and Huan, a balck and white shadow, moving through the trees on the other side of the clearing. Curufin looks at the tree Celegorm is in and gestures sharply before disappearing into the underbrush, a silent  _ ready when you are _ .

Celegorm nods to himself and draws back the bow until the fletching just brushes his cheek. The arrow’s head is barbed and jagged, and he can’t help wincing in preemptive sympathy as he sights down the shaft. He lines up the shot as best he can, then exhales slowly, sinking into the almost meditative calm that comes with target shooting, and releases the arrow.

It whistles past Fingolfin, sinking into the grass three feet to his left and a yard or two behind him. Fingon and Fingolfin both jump to their feet, weapons drawn and searching the woods around them for the threat.

“ _ Discipline _ ,” chides Orome’s voice in old memory, and Celegorm doesn’t allow himself to get upset or worried over how bad his aim has gotten. He nocks the next arrow, aims, and then shifts his bow to the right and lets fly.

It’s a closer shot this time, grazing Fingolfin’s sword arm, but it’s not enough.

Last chance. It’s his last chance to get this right.

He pushes the thought aside and breathes deep and even for several seconds before he nocks the third arrow. Compartmentalize. That’s his father’s advice, from a smithing lesson that went so badly he didn’t set foot in the forge for months afterward. He’s since found that it applies to more than just forgework, and he ignores all the thoughts and emotions that aren’t conducive to making the shot.

He brings his bow up, steady even though it really isn’t the kind of bow meant to be shot from a tree, and lines up the shot. The world narrows down to the mark he’s set for himself, on Fingolfin’s shoulder where it won’t be fatal but it will stop him from being able to fight for a good long while. To the right, he reminds himself, and sighs out a breath as he lets the arrow go.

As soon as the shaft clears his bow, all the senses he’d been ignoring come rushing back and he swings down from the tree and starts making his way to a different side of the clearing. He hears the arrow thunk home with a nauseating crunch of bone and a shocked cry as he hits the ground.

Celegorm hears Curufin’s voice in his head before he sees the damage, sardonic edged with horror as his brother and Huan burst into the clearing.  _ I told you so! _

Celegorm would like to know what exactly he’s done wrong to provoke such a reaction, given that Curufin is and always has been absolutely terrible at osanwe. He comes through the trees to join everyone in the clearing and Fingolfin’s sword is immediately leveled at him. It drops a moment later, but Celegorm wonders what he’s hit if not Fingolfin’s sword arm as he’d intended.

“The orcs?” Fingolfin asks shortly, glancing at the black paint splattered over Celegorm.

“Dead,” he says. “What-”

But Fingolfin turns around before Celegorm can get his question out, and Celegorm is abruptly able to see exactly what. Fingon is on his knees in the grass with an unmistakeable arrow sticking out of his shoulder. Celegorm knows without having to really look that the wound is bad, and Fingon is probably going to pass out as soon as the adrenaline wears off.

A kernel of dread settles in his stomach, heavy and cold, as he remembers the fact that orc arrows tend to be very poisoned, this arrow specifically. Fingon casts him a look that manages to be both baleful and indignant at the same time, and it’s so obviously saying  _ I can’t believe you shot me! _ that Celegorm wonders for a moment how Fingolfin doesn’t see it.

He understands a second later when Fingon hisses through his teeth at the pain. Fingolfin looks even more distressed and doesn’t protest when Fingon grabs his hand and holds it tight enough to bruise. Celegorm realizes, for the first time, that he’s already lost three of his children and Fingon is the only one he has left.

He pushes back the guilt that comes surging up with that thought and kneels down in front of Fingon. He pulls out one of his less sinister arrows, a regular wooden one, and breaks off the fletching and the head. He holds it out to Fingon.

“You can bite down on this or you can break your teeth. Pick.”

Fingon opens his mouth and Celegorm puts the stick between his teeth. It’s not ideal, but then, nothing about this entire situation is ideal, so it’ll have to do. Curufin moves behind Fingon so that he can’t pull away when Celegorm grabs the shaft of the arrow in his shoulder.

Fingon closes his eyes, going pale when Celegorm breaks it off. His grip on his father’s hand becomes bone-breakingly tight.

“Breathe slowly,” Celegorm instructs as he pulls the stick out of Fingon’s mouth, not bothering to keep his tone from being harsh. “Orc arrows are usually poisoned and the faster you breathe the faster your heart beats.” And Fingon and Celegorm both know for a fact that this arrow is poisoned.

Celegorm drags Fingon to his feet and waits for his cousin to steady himself. Fingolfin still looks stricken, so Celegorm points at the two horses standing warily at the edge of the trees.

“We have to go back to the city,” he says, and his tone is still harsh, but Fingolfin is listening, so it’s fine. He and Curufin pass Fingon up, and he’s already getting more pliable as the poison begins to set in.

Celegorm spares a moment to speak to the horses, calming them, and then he nods to Fingolfin.

Fingon is delivered to the healers in a poison-induced dazed, pale as the dead and barely hanging onto consciousness as his eyes track everyone’s movements, and Celegorm is suddenly very glad the first two arrows missed, because if Fingon is this bad already, he doesn’t want to know how bad it would have been with three or even just two of the arrowheads lodged in his body.

He, Curufin, and Fingolfin are tossed out when the healers set to work, and Fingolfin paces just outside the door to the healing halls.

“He’ll be fine,” Celegorm snaps, irritated with the constant motion.

Fingolfin stops. “How do you know?” he asks, sounding not at all like the king he is.

_ Because this entire trip was to make sure he wouldn’t get killed, so I’m not letting him die, _ Celegorm thinks, but he doesn’t say that

“Because you’re going to stay right here in the palace and make sure of it,” he says, then pauses and lowers his voice, leaning closer so all of Fingolfin’s attention is on him, “and you’re not going to go get yourself killed trying to fight Morgoth in a suicide charge that you can’t possibly win and leave him with the crown.”

Fingolfin does take a step back then, eyes going wide with something not quite like betrayal. “You know about that?”


	8. Chapter 8

Fingolfin doesn’t say a thing, just waves his hand in the universal gesture for  _ follow me _ , then casts the door to the Healing Halls one last worried look and walks away. He leads them through the halls for the better part of an hour, changing his mind and backtracking several times before they finally arrive at his study. He ushers them inside with pursed lips, then locks the door and quietly instructs the guard that anything he hears is not to go beyond this room.

Celegorm wonders what exactly he expects from this encounter.

Fingolfin sits down at the desk and gestures for Celegorm to sit in the chair opposite him. Curufin perches on the arm, still managing to look aloof and dignified even with Huan’s great fluffy head nosing at his chest in a demand that he be petted.

“How do you know about-” Fingolfin hesitates, voice catching. “ _ That _ ?”

“Galadriel isn’t the only one with Foresight,” Celegorm says, not quite flippantly. It’s objectively true, so he can’t be accused of lying when Fingolfin inevitably decides they have to write Maedhros about Fingon’s condition.

Fingolfin sucks in a breath and leans back in his chair, studying them closely. “And- you said that I would die.”

“If you ever truly expected to survive a fight with a Vala, then you are an even greater fool than our father always claimed you to be,” Curufin says scathingly.

Fingolfin shoots him a reproachful look and turns back to Celegorm. “What of my children? Do you know where Turgon and Aredhel are? Would Fingon survive the kingship?”

“If you leave Fingon with the crown, he will die,” Celegorm says, trying to sound serious and grave the way Caranthir does when he delivers bits of prophecy.

From the way Fingolfin pales, he’s succeeded. Fingolfin stands and starts to pace, then growls when he only gets two steps before he’s face to face with the wall. “I can’t do nothing!”

“Build an army.”

Fingolfin turns to him. “What?”

“Write our brother. He has alliances, you have political clout. If you do this right, you can win.”

Fingolfin sits back down, considering. Celegorm runs over what he’s just said in his mind, trying to remember if there’s anything else he needs to say.

Oh, right. Luthien has to get the Silmaril first to prove that Morgoth can actually be fought, especially if they succeed in keeping Fingolfin from running out to get himself killed.

“But you have to wait until Luthien of Doriath is married to go to war.”

Curufin and his uncle both look at him strangely, but Curufin has more information to go on than Fingolfin is ever going to get and Celegorm can see it when he makes the connection, mouth falling open for half a second and eyes going wide.

Fingolfin just keeps looking bemused. “Why?”

“Because it’s important. Trust me.”

Fingolfin looks like he wants to argue for a few moments, but eventually he concedes. “Alright. When is she going to be married?”

Celegorm frowns. Dates are not his forte, and he instinctively glances at Curufin for help. Curufin only shrugs and keeps petting Huan. Damn. Well, Luthien was married with a kid before Nargothrond fell, and Dior had been king for what, a year, when they sacked Menegroth? Two? More? And he was half mortal, so he didn’t age like an elf, but he was at the least in his late twenties, so…

“Maybe in eight or twelve years? I’m not sure, but I don’t think it’s very long. Definitely not more than… fifteen years, though.”  _ I think. _

“So I have eight years to organize an army against Morgoth?”

The tone he says it in makes Celegorm realize exactly how this must sound, demanding that his uncle build an army by a date that he can’t actually recall. Maedhros would probably whack him upside the head for it, especially with the way he still futilely tries to advocate for diplomacy. Probably  _ will _ , the next time they see each other.

“Eight or twelve,” Celegorm confirms at last, and it doesn’t sound very confident even to his own ears. “I think.”

Fingolfin studies him for long moments, then sighs heavily. He stands up and crosses to the liquor cabinet, pulling out a bottle of brandy and three glasses. Celegorm takes the offered glass with eyebrows raised. It’s strong, he can tell that without even having to taste it, which makes the way Fingolfin knocks his back in one swallow impressive. Their uncle refills his glass and sits back down, gesturing to Celegorm’s still untouched brandy.

“You might appreciate that if you’re having visions. I remember how it was for all the others to come into their abilities.”

The others he speaks of are all the people in the family who actually do have Foresight, Celegorm knows, and he thinks that if he was telling the truth, he would definitely appreciate a glass of strong alcohol. He remembers very well the way Caranthir used to wake up screaming bloody murder and cling indiscriminately to whichever family member was closest for hours. He drinks, regardless of the fact that he isn’t actually having visions and it’s not even noon yet.

“A letter to your brother, then?” Fingolfin says after he refills Celegorm’s glass, producing paper and a pen from one of his drawers.

Celegorm nods and does not drink again, because the first glass has gone to his head remarkably quickly, and while it’s not at all unpleasant, he’s not very confident in his ability to hold his tongue if he drinks too much. And given the current situation, drunkenly blurting out his secrets could have serious consequences which he’d much rather avoid.

“And what exactly do you expect me to say?”

Well. He hasn’t actually thought that far. Letter writing is more Fingolfin’s area, or even just the area of anyone who ever bothered to learn to write, which Celegorm did not. The refusal to learn his letters was initially to spite his father: what could frustrate him more than refusing to learn the alphabet he invented? Then, after Feanor’s death, it was more of an unwillingness to learn from anyone but Feanor himself, because no matter how they fought, he  _ was _ his father.

“Tell him that Fingon is hurt and he needs to come here and see him,” Curufin says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Which it is, once Celegorm spends half a moment actually thinking about it.

Fingolfin seems to think so too, because he’s nodding along. “Of course. When he gets here, we can discuss this vision of yours further and convince him to help us build up an army and make a stand against Morgoth.”

Celegorm is beginning to think that he shouldn’t have said he has Foresight, because Maedhros knows what Foresight looks like, and there’s almost no way he can pull off that big of a lie. Maedhros is going to see right through him.

Fingolfin writes out a letter in what has to be some kind of shorthand or code or something, because no one can actually write that fast, can they? He finishes the letter and signs it, then waves at Celegorm and Curufin in a way that’s obviously a dismissal.

When Celegorm stands, he’s abruptly reminded that he started his morning by falling out of a tree. Yes, he’s definitely bruised. A lot. He opens his eyes, not realizing that he closed them, and Curufin hands him the glass of brandy he’d been planning not to drink. He drinks anyway, because they’re about to leave and maybe if he drinks then he’ll stop feeling the bruises for a little while.

He doesn’t.

“Are you alright?” Fingolfin asks, rising up out of his chair a bit in concern.

“Orcs,” Celegorm says, which is another lie, but it’s going to have to do.

Eventually, they end up back in their room. Curufin wanders into the adjoining washroom and it isn’t long before Celegorm can hear the taps running and smell Curufin’s fancy oils. Today it’s something flowery, maybe lavender. Celegorm sits down at the mirror, gingerly reaching up to redo his many small braids, and almost jerks back at seeing the splatter of black across his cheek.

Right. There’s paint on his face for a reason. They were trying to make it look like orcs shot Fingolfin, not Celegorm. And he didn’t even succeed in actually shooting Fingolfin, he shot Fingon instead. And when he thinks about that for very long, he starts to feel like his insides are all twisted up because that’s not what he meant to do.

It’s not a pleasant feeling, and he’s not nearly drunk enough to be emotional no matter how floaty and warm he’s starting to feel, so he focuses on doing his braids without pulling at his bruises, which is almost difficult enough that he succeeds in ignoring the twisted up feeling.

Curufin comes out of the washroom in a soft robe, dripping water on the rug. “Are you going to bathe?” he asks.

Celegorm opens his mouth to say no, but Curufin continues before he can. “I know you usually use the pond to scandalize the servants, but the warm water might help with all the bruises.”

Oh, that would be nice. “Alright.”

The washroom still smells of lavender, but he can deal with that if it means that his back will stop hurting. He waits for the tub to fill, and he can’t help thinking about all the things he really, really doesn’t want to think of. Like how he could aim a bow better when he was a child than he can now or how Maedhros is probably going to find out what he did because he’s never been able to keep secrets from Maedhros and he still can’t now.

Like how it’s  _ his _ fault that Fingon is in surgery in the Healing Halls and Fingolfin is drinking alone in his office because  _ he _ came up with a desperate plan and it went wrong, like it always does.

Guilt, he realizes abruptly. That’s what’s making him feel like his guts are all tied up in knots. It’s difficult to recognize because it’s not something he has cause to feel all that often and it’s barely there, but it gets stronger the more he thinks about it until he’s sure that that’s what it is. He feels guilty for shooting Fingon.

He scrubs all the black paint off and soaks in the water a little longer than is necessary, then he climbs out of the bath and puts on a robe. He does feel better now, he’ll admit that much, at least to himself, and he reaches in to pull the plug on the drain.

When he goes out into the bedroom, Curufin is fully dressed for the day, sitting at the desk reading a few loose sheets of paper, yellowed with age, and drinking a cup of tea that smells dangerously strong.

“Do you think we can go see Fingon yet?” Celegorm asks, not allowing himself to hesitate.

“You,” Curufin says.

“What?”

“You want to know if  _ you  _ can go see Fingon.  _ You  _ are the one who shot him,  _ I  _ am the one who said this was a bad idea. So when you do go to see him,  _ I  _ am not going with you.”

Celegorm is offended at that, because being offended is easier than being hurt. He scoffs. “But you didn’t come up with anything better, did you?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer before he walks out the door and slams it behind him. It’s cathartic. He’s a fair distance away before he realizes that he’s still in just a bathrobe, and he decides that it preserves his modesty enough that he doesn’t need to go back and get dressed because he doesn’t want to talk to Curufin right now. The servants he passes seem to think otherwise, but he doesn’t really care all that much what the servants say about him.

He ends up at the door to the Healing Halls. He was here just a couple of hours ago, but it feels like so much longer. He takes a steadying breath and knocks. He waits long enough that he nearly leaves, then a woman in apprentice’s greys opens the door. She looks surprised to see him.

“Oh!” she says when she realizes she’s been staring. “I’m sorry, I was expecting the king. It’s strange that he hasn’t come to visit yet.”

She shrugs a little and waves him through, but not without a baffled glance at his state of dress. She doesn’t comment, though, which is probably the only thing Celegorm genuinely likes about on-duty healers: they don’t tend to ask a lot of questions that aren’t about health. Which is good, because he doesn’t know how he’d go about explaining that the reason Fingolfin hasn’t come to visit his injured son is that he’s drinking over it, which is not something Fingolfin usually does.

Eru, he just can’t get over that, can he? He shakes it off and follows the apprentice healer through to where Fingon is, in a room off to the side of the main hall. He’s unconscious or asleep, and the apprentice quietly leaves when Celegorm sits down in the chair beside the bed. Fingon is frighteningly pale and still against the crisp, sterile sheets.

He grabs Fingon’s hand, nearly recoiling at the amount of heat coming off of him. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.

Fingon doesn’t respond.


	9. Chapter 9

When Celegorm wakes up, and he must have been tired, if he doesn’t even remember falling asleep in the first place, Fingon is looking at him. His blue gaze is hazy with fever and his hand is contrarily cold in Celegorm’s, but he’s awake, which is good.

“I’m sorry,” Celegorm says, sitting straighter in his chair and fixing the shoulder of his robe where it slid off while he slept.

Fingon frowns like he’s confused, then he says, accusingly, “Shot me.”

“I- yes.”

“Why?”

“I meant to shoot your father, you know that. It was an a-” he glances at Fingon, who’s still looking at him in utter confusion. Celegorm reminds himself that Fingon is still feverish and probably delirious from blood loss and poison. “I didn’t mean to.”

Fingon frowns up at him for several seconds. “Oh,” he says at last, sagging back into the pillows.

“I’m sorry,” Celegorm says again, to make sure it gets through.

Fingon gives a little nod. “Don’t forgive you though.”

“Alright,” Celegorm says, but it upsets him more than he thinks it should. “Maedhros is coming,” he offers when the silence starts to feel awkward.

Fingon smiles tiredly. “Good. Miss him.”

Right, it’s been a while since Maedhros and Fingon last saw each other. Probably before the Bragollach. And now Fingon is injured because Celegorm made a reckless plan and didn’t factor in all the things that could go wrong.

That is, admittedly, a family issue, which is the only reason Celegorm doesn’t feel worse about shooting his cousin. And that’s a new feeling, because there isn’t usually any reason to feel guilty when the only things he’s shooting at are orcs and deer.

He drags his thoughts back to Maedhros, because that’s the more important issue here. Maedhros, who has spent his entire life minding children and then soldiers and knows better than anyone how to tell when people are lying, is on his way to Barad Eithel. And Celegorm has been lying his way through the city for three days.

He swears and Fingon’s eyes drift to him. He mutters something meant to be soothing, but the effect is probably ruined by the fact that he’s out the door before he finishes talking. He doesn’t quite run back to his room, and he’s dressed and halfway packed before he stops to think.

_ Selfish _ , says his first thought. He dismisses it immediately. He died, Eru damn it all, he thinks that entitles him to as much selfishness as he feels like.

_ Not practical _ , says the next thought, and that’s a little harder to ignore. He can’t avoid Maedhros forever, no matter how hard he tries. Beleriand is too well mapped and Celegorm too public a figure to reasonably disappear into the woods until this all calms down.

And even if that wasn’t the case, Maedhros has alliances everywhere. He’s inadvertently running the world’s greatest network of spies. Inadvertently because Maedhros has always preferred open confrontation to whispering in dark corners if it’s at all possible, but many of the people he allies himself with don’t have those same qualms.

Then his mind loops back to  _ selfish _ , and he can‘t dismiss it so easily this time, because his motives are actually selfish. He wants his brothers happy and alive and he doesn’t care what he has to do to get it. And, difficult as it is to admit it, Maedhros won’t be happy if Fingon doesn’t recover, which means that Celegorm should probably stay here and make sure Fingon does recover as well as possible.

Which will take time and keep him in the city at least until Maedhros arrives, and he’ll be caught out in a massive lie. And then Maedhros will want to know what’s actually happening because Maedhros is like that, and Celegorm will have to tell him, because there aren’t many people who can lie to Maedhros and get away with it, let alone be believed, and Celegorm definitely isn’t one of them.

Then Maedhros will find out about Doriath, and if Maedhros finds out he led a second Kinslaying, he’ll be distraught, which means Celegorm can’t tell him if he wants him to be happy, which leads him back to the impracticality of trying to avoid his own brother for an eternity.

He drops his bag on the floor at his feet right where he’s standing, then follows it down, staring up at the ceiling in frustration. This is why he never thinks things through, he always gets stuck in a loop of things that won’t work. He decided a long time ago that it must be because all the conflicting lessons in politics he got as a child must have gotten mixed up somewhere along the line. If he doesn’t bother to think about things, then he doesn’t have to get all tangled up.

He isn’t sure how long he lays there before Curufin comes back. His hair is pulled back into a tight bun at the base of his head and some strands have begun to flyaway, and he’s in light clothes that are soaked through with sweat, which means he was probably in the forge. He makes a beeline for the shuttered window, only noticing Celegorm when he nearly trips over him.

“ _ What- _ ” he yelps, arms pinwheeling ridiculously for a moment as he tries to catch himself. He succeeds, but most of his dignity is lost no matter how darkly he scowls as he asks, “What are you doing?”

Celegorm doesn’t laugh. Not even a little. It takes tremendous self control, but he doesn’t. “I’m thinking,” he says instead.

“Really,” Curufin says flatly and continues on his way to the window. He opens it and stands there in the cold air of night in a city more northerly than they’re used to. Well, that at least gives Celegorm an idea of what time it is.

“Yes, really,” Celegorm spits out viciously. If Curufin wants an argument, then Celegorm is more than happy to oblige. At the very least, it would get his mind off the seemingly unsolvable issue of what to do about Maedhros.

But Curufin just waves his hand in a poor attempt at placation. “Relax,” he mutters. Then, clearer, “What’s the problem now?”

Celegorm sighs. He’s too drained to keep up the offense for long, even though he just slept an hour or two ago. Doing things with good intentions instead of just doing things for the thrill of it is exhausting, and to think he’s only been up to this fixing things business for a week. Or maybe it’s all the emotional energy it takes to purposefully shoot a family member that’s taking such a toll.

Either way, being mad at Curufin about it is a waste of time that could be used for things that are actually important.

“Maedhros,” he says at last.

“You know,” Curufin says, his tone not quite musing, “I don’t think Maedhros would like to hear you call him a problem.”

“But he is,” Celegorm insists, sitting up. “He’s coming here, and if we stay, he’ll know we’re lying straight to his face about what happened. But if we leave, we can’t be sure Fingon recovers right and Fingolfin doesn’t die, so we have to stay. But if we stay, we have to talk to Maedhros and he’ll want to know the truth and if he finds out what he did at Doriath he’ll hate himself, so we can’t stay. But we can’t leave either, because no one in this family is smart enough to not get killed if we think we have a good reason.” He stops himself before he can start going through everything over again, because he’s pretty sure Curufin gets the gist of the matter.

Curufin turns around to look at him. He blinks. “Right,” he says after a long moment to decipher the reasoning. “Right. Alright. So what are we going to do?”

“Die?” Celegorm suggests after much dramatic deliberation, even though they both know he isn’t serious. That would cause more problems than it could ever solve and it would be unpleasant besides.

Curufin snorts and goes along with it. “And how are we going to die this time?”

Celegorm hums thoughtfully. “Some of the orcs that shot Fingon escaped and then next time we go on a hunt they decide to get revenge on us for killing their squad mates. It’s all very bloody and heroic and Fingon is sad about it.”

“Ah, yes,” Curufin says solemnly, “one of the better ways we’ve gone out.”

Celegorm nods along. “Definitely. But not as spectacular as the time we bested a Balrog in vengeance of Father.”

“You’re right,” Curufin agrees, with so much affected gravitas that it almost tips both of them into laughter.

Of course, none of the speculative deaths are likely to ever actually happen, since it’s only a game they play to take the edge off when things get too stressful. It works, though, which means they mostly ignore Maglor’s horrified comments about how it isn't a good coping mechanism. Not that Maglor really has much room to talk; Celegorm is pretty sure that self loathing is worse than coming up with hypothetical deaths.

“But really,” Curufin says after a few moments, turning back to the window, “what are we going to do?”

Celegorm sighs. “I don’t know. I think we should probably stay here until we're sure Fingolfin isn’t going to go get himself killed anyway. But that means we have to come up with a cover story for when Maedhros gets here, and we already told Fingolfin that I have Foresight.”

“But we didn’t.”

Celegorm frowns. Yes, they did. They- “Oh!”

“We didn’t say you have Foresight, that’s just what we let him believe. You do know about things that haven’t happened yet, so as long as you don’t outright say you have Foresight, you won’t be lying. We can let Maedhros believe you’re having visions and his conclusion and Fingolfin’s conclusion will match and they won’t have any reason to be suspicious.”

That would work. It wouldn’t even be very difficult. Except- “We forgot about Fingon.”

Curufin sounds confused. “No. We didn’t tell him anything.”

“No, but I shot him. He knows it was me and he knows what the original plan was. If he says anything, we’re going to be charged with treason, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.”

“Fingon can keep a secret. He won’t tell anybody what really happened. This is too important.”

“He might not even mean to, though. The healers have him so drugged up and hazy that he was having a hard time following a simple conversation. I used little words and everything.”

“That’s… not good.”

“No, it’s not.”

Curufin is quiet for a long moment. “We’ll just have to hope he has enough sense to keep his mouth shut even sick and delirious.”

“Wonderful,” Celegorm says.

Curufin rolls his eyes. “Sarcasm does not become you.”

“I don’t care.”

Curufin shrugs. “That’s your problem. I’m going to bed. You should go down to the kitchen and make sure alcohol isn’t the only thing you put in your stomach today.”

Celegorm opens his mouth to protest, but he realizes that he can’t. He didn’t eat anything before they set out on their mission this morning, and then they drank with Fingolfin, and then he took a bath and argued with Curufin and fell asleep beside Fingon’s bed. And then he came back here to get stuck in a loop of how to deal with Maedhros. It’s been an incredibly long day, and food just didn’t seem important.

“What about you?” he asks instead. “Everyone knows how you get when you’re in the forge.”

Curufin waves him off. “I ate before I went over there. I wouldn’t have the patience to deal with the head smith on an empty stomach.”

That’s fair, Celegorm thinks. Fingolfin’s head smith is as good at his job as the title implies, but he’s a nasty, arrogant man who only took said job for the generous pay. Curufin has occasionally, ‘occasionally’ meaning ‘often and loudly,’ been known to wax eloquent about how he’s a disgrace to the arts and “Fingolfin may as well hire an orc’s ass because it would be less offensive to all the real smiths among the people.”

Thinking of Curufin’s enthusiastic rants tips Celegorm over into giggles, and Curufin gives him a strange look, mostly askance and a little bit concerned.

“Did you hit your head when you fell out of that tree?” he asks, sounding completely and utterly baffled.

Celegorm waves a hand in dismissal. “I’m fine.”

He starts toward the kitchen a minute later. He grabs some fruit from the bowl someone left out and goes to take a walk through the city since he slept too recently to want to sleep again already. He looks out at the horizon towards Himring through the twisting, sturdy iron of the eastern gate and almost fancies that he can see Maedhros’ traveling party, even though that isn’t possible.

They have a plan, he reminds himself. It’s a good plan. It doesn’t involve poison even a little bit.

So why does he feel like something’s going to go wrong?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a little all over the place because it just did not want to be written but finally I sat down and cranked it out anyway. The hypothetical death game is something I do with my sisters and I thought it fit Celegorm and Curufin to a tee.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A birthday gift for all my wonderful readers! (My birthday, not yours, because I don't know your birthdays.)

At breakfast the next morning, Fingolfin makes a valiant effort at hiding the fact that he’s hungover. He even mostly succeeds, not that either Celegorm or Curufin care overmuch. Fingon’s absence is felt keenly in the complete lack of conversation, which makes the entire meal uncomfortable and awkward. Once, Fingolfin attempts the kind of polite but strained talk that was common at gatherings of the entire family back in Valinor, but it’s mostly brushed to the side and peters off after a few minutes, and he doesn’t try again.

For the next few days, the three of them fall into a kind of routine. They take breakfast together, and then Fingolfin goes to sit with Fingon while he works on paperwork and Celegorm and Curufin do their level best to not draw attention to themselves. This lasts for a week and three days, which is when Fingolfin tells them at breakfast that Maedhros should be arriving that afternoon.

Fingon is healing nicely, and he’s even joining them for breakfast this morning. He lights up at the news. Celegorm just chokes on his toast. He knows, in his mind, how long it takes to get from Himring to Barad Eithel, but somehow it still feels much too soon for every part of him but his mind. Fingon  _ is _ healing, though, which is why Celegorm doesn’t feel as bad as he probably could about grabbing Huan and Curufin and disappearing on a hunting trip for the first few days of Maedhros’ visit.

They’re in the forest now, and it's a sunny midafternoon on the second day of their hunt, and Celegorm is doing his best to bring his shooting back up to snuff. He’s consistently failing, and he has to remind himself not to throw his bow on the ground as yet another arrow skitters off into the undergrowth. Curufin, the traitor, actually has the audacity to laugh, not that it’s really much worse than the way Huan’s paw has come up to cover his eyes.

Celegorm stalks off into the trees to collect it, because he knows he won’t be able to find it at all if he waits too long. On his way back to Huan and Curufin, he takes out a knife and scratches a new target into a closer tree than he’s been aiming for for the past twenty minutes. It’s shameful, he thinks.

He’s had this argument with Curufin once today. His brother disagrees, says he’s starting all over with completely different sight. Which is true, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s embarrassing that he can’t hit the target, or even the tree, he’s aiming for when it’s not even thirty five yards distant. The new target is more like twenty five yards, and he’s almost willing to bet that he won’t be able to hit that either.

He settles back into his stance and nocks the arrow he’s just collected, then draws the bow back. The red fletching brushes his cheekbone and he can see it in his peripheral vision, bending just a little with the light wind. A few deep breaths and the world is narrowing down to the jagged X carved into the tree trunk.

It’s a shot he could’ve made in his sleep before. Now, he takes one more breath and releases the arrow on the exhale and hopes he’s finally gotten it right.

He hasn’t. The arrow sails past the tree he’s aiming for and thunks into a pine a little further back, sending a cloud of dark green needles floating to the ground. Curufin peers at it as though he’s trying to make out the red, then laughs harder when he can’t. Huan rolls over onto his back, huffing out short, wheezing breaths. Celegorm is concerned for a minute, but then he realizes that even his dog is laughing at him. Admittedly, he would probably laugh too if someone shot a pine tree and then had to go collect the arrows, but it’s not fun to be the person doing the collecting.

He does drop his bow this time, pulling his sleeves down from where they’re rolled up around his biceps, not that that’s going to do much if the pine tree is really determined to stick him. He shoves his arm into the shadows of the branches and feels for the arrow. He finds it, eventually, and it comes unstuck from the tree trunk without having to pull too hard.

A lump of coagulated sap and several needles come with it. Some of the offending needles have gotten stuck in the loose weave of his shirt and there’s sap on his fingers and the back of his hand, and he groans because there’s no way that’s coming off without a fight. At least he isn’t wearing his arm guards; it would never come out of all the little nooks in the tooled leather and he’d be sticky for a small eternity.

He flings the lump of sap at Curufin in a little bit of harmless revenge for all the laughter. It manages to land in his hair. It falls to the ground, because it’s kind of heavy and Curufin’s hair is so fine, but it leaves a patch of stickiness visible across the clearing because of the pale shine, and Celegorm gasps and covers his mouth in the universal older sibling posture of ‘oops.’ Curufin reaches up to figure out what he’s done. His fingers touch the sap and he gasps, then glares.

Celegorm is torn between laughing and apologizing. Instead, he settles on, “It’s easier to get out of hair than skin, at least.” Which is true, if only by a little.

Curufin just scoffs and grabs his bag from the ground, stirring up the carpet of damp leaves when he does. He turns and starts in the direction of the city.

Celegorm is quick to follow, running a few feet to catch up and then settling into a pace that matches Curufin’s. “Wait, where are you going? Maedhros is here!”

“And?” Curufin says. He doesn’t stop walking. “The stream is cold. Cold water won’t wash out the sap. And Maedhros is better at hair than you are and I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“But Maedhros is going to want to talk to you,” Celegorm tries, a little desperately.

“No he isn’t. I don’t talk to anyone but to you and to Tyelpe. Maedhros isn’t going to try to talk to me unless Fingon tells him what we did.”  _ And he told us he wouldn’t _ goes unsaid.

Celegorm is still hesitant. He’s not happy to have his hunt cut short, but it might be less painful to just talk to Maedhros and get it over with than to spend more days out here with Curufin annoyed at him.

“But Fingolfin will have told him that we said I have Foresight, and Maedhros is definitely going to want to talk about that,” he argues, but it sounds weak even to his own ears. They have a plan for that contingency, so it really doesn’t matter if Maedhros asks.

Curufin knows it too, and stops and turns around for the sole purpose of sending Celegorm an unimpressed look. Celegorm sighs in defeat and picks up his bow off the ground.

“Fine.”

Really, he knows it’s cowardly to be so ardently avoiding his own brother like this, so it’s with only the tiniest bit of regret that he whistles sharply for Huan to follow and walks after Curufin back toward the city.

By the time they reach Barad Eithel, the sun has begun to sink below the horizon, casting a fiery orange and gold glow over the white walls of the city. Celegorm still isn’t very excited over the idea of actively searching for Maedhros, so he stops at the stables and stands there brushing Huan while Curufin walks on ahead. The task is repetitive and simple enough that it allows him to drift off into thought.

Specifically, thoughts that wonder why he’s so concerned about Maedhros finding out. Maedhros is a politician, he has been all his life, and the only thing that Beleriand has changed is that he has sharper edges now than he ever could have in Valinor. He’s kind, too, and he perpetually fills the role of oldest cousin, responsible and caring. He could help.

And that, Celegorm realizes, is the problem. Maedhros has never gone a day in his life where he wasn’t the responsible one. He was cut down from Thangorodrim and the moment he was coherent he started working to drag a treaty out of Thingol’s high and mighty ass. When he succeeded, he immediately abdicated in favor of Fingolfin and went to build the first line of defense against Morgoth.

Maedhros could help, could make this easier and come up with sensible, workable plans that actually have a chance of working right, but Celegorm doesn’t want him to have to be the responsible one this time, doesn’t want him to have the burden of knowing everything that went wrong. Celegorm saw how leading ruined him last time, and he doesn’t want Maedhros to become that person again. It’s Celegorm’s turn to take care of his brothers.

Which, admittedly, has often had very mixed results in the past. Oh, he respects Maedhros and he gets along well enough with Curufin, and the twins liked him long enough that they learned to track like nobody’s business, but Caranthir and Maglor have always been quiet, content to sit still and work on artistic pursuits for hours and hours at a time. Celegorm can’t do that, and it’s led to more than a few mishaps.

Huan turns his head and bumps his nose against Celegorm’s chest, pulling him out of his thoughts, and he realizes that the sun has sunk a handspan lower in the sky and Huan is about as brushed as it’s possible for him to get. He sighs. He can’t think of anything else to occupy his time, and it’s stupid to be stalling, so he walks inside.

It’s quiet. Not that he really expected otherwise, but even the usual hustle and bustle of the capital city is dulled, like something’s happened. And Celegorm can think of a dozen different scenarios as to what that something might be, all ending badly for himself and several ending badly for Beleriand.

A pair of maids come around a corner, one with a basket of cleaned laundry on her hip and the other carrying a little bucket of laundry starch. They’re talking easily, but their voices are as muted as everything else in the palace. Celegorm reaches out and catches one woman’s arm as she passes.

“What’s going on?” The note of worry he feels is better hidden than he expected it to be, and he manages to just sound curious.

The maids frown a little and look at each other. The one with the starch is the first to get up the courage to speak.

“The king and Lord Maedhros…” her courage doesn’t last long, and she hesitates. The other woman picks up for her.

“They argued,” she says, but there’s an interesting emphasis on ‘argued’ that makes it sound like that’s not actually what happened and she means something else. But before Celegorm can get the words out to ask, the two women disappear into a servant’s corridor that seals to leave a perfectly seamless wall behind them and Celegorm can’t figure out how to make it open again.

Even if Fingolfin and Maedhros argued, whatever that’s supposed to mean, there are still only so many places either of them could be: the public areas of the palace like the gardens and the library, their private quarters, Fingolfin’s office, or Fingon’s sickroom. That isn’t a lot of places to look, so Celegorm heads for the garden first.

Fifteen minutes later, he’s established that all three of the gardens, every nook and cranny of the library, and both Maedhros’ and Fingolfin’s rooms are entirely empty of the people he’s looking for, and he’s also given up and begun appreciating the irony of the fact that twenty minutes ago he was avoiding looking for Maedhros. That leaves Fingolfin’s study and Fingon’s sickroom. They both care too much about Fingon to hurt or upset him much when he’s still so fragile, but they also both have the family temper, which isn’t encouraging. On the other hand, long centuries of experience tell him that Fingolfin’s office is usually where the more devastating family rifts begin.

He takes a fortifying breath and starts walking. Stalling won’t make finding out any easier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The sap incident is inspired by something that happened to my city slicker cousin while we were camping one time. That's when I learned that if hair is fine enough, it really is easier to get sap out of hair than skin.


	11. Chapter 11

Celegorm has resolved not to stall.

That doesn’t stop a small, sensible part of his mind, the one that says that if Maedhros and Fingolfin are fighting he should get very, very far away, from slowing his steps every so often. He picks up his pace when he realizes, which makes for an odd alternation between a half jog and a slow walk that trips him up when he starts on the spiral stair to the private wing of the palace, which is actually just an official name for all the family rooms that mostly stopped being used when Turgon and Idril and Aredhel left the city years ago. Fingolfin’s office and Fingon’s studio are mostly still in use, though.

He doesn’t knock when he reaches the door at the top of the stairs. Celegorm remembers being trained to be a part of Finwe’s court years and years and years ago. The court was as vicious as anything could be in Aman, among people who had not yet seen war. Knocking means people will know someone is there and stop talking about anything that they don’t want others to hear.

The door’s hinges are well oiled, and Celegorm slips into the hallway beyond with steps that are silent in spite of the fact that he’s wearing sturdy leather boots. There are three doors on either wall and one on the far end. The one on the far end, he knows, is Fingolfin’s office, and the second door on the right is Fingon’s studio, which he might or might not be in, depending on what the healers think of his shoulder today, though it’s more likely that they’re keeping him in his bedroom or the Healing Halls still.

He doesn’t expect to hear anything from Fingon’s door, but he pauses to listen anyway. He’s glad he did, because there are quiet voices coming from inside: one is Fingon’s, sounding upset enough that Celegorm can’t make out what he’s saying, and the other, surprisingly, sounds like Curufin. Whatever Fingon is upset over, Curufin is hardly managing to get a word in edgewise, and most of the things he does say are awkward attempts at comfort.

As strange as it is to think about Curufin actually trying to be nice to someone for two minutes, it isn’t going to help him figure out what happened between Maedhros and Fingolfin, so he files the information away as potential blackmail fodder and keeps moving.

There are also voices coming from Fingolfin’s office, which he did expect. He leans as close to the wood as he dares and then doesn’t move anymore. The voices have gone quiet in the few seconds it’s taken Celegorm to get comfortable and for a moment he worries that he’s made some kind of noise and alerted them to his presence. The worry spikes a moment later when he hears the scrape of a chair across the floor, which is, for some incomprehensible reason, made of wood in this part of the palace.

He really only notices because the boards are old and a little loose and that makes it more difficult to sneak than it is on the newer stone floors.

The scrape of the chair is followed by footsteps coming closer to the door, but then they turn around and walk the other way, and Celegorm is left standing in the hallway with his heart in his throat.

“An army,” comes Maedhros’ voice after a few more seconds, completely empty of emotion in the way he does when he thinks the other person is out of their mind but he’s too polite to actually say it.

“I know you think-” Fingolfin begins, but then cuts off at some signal from Maedhros that Celegorm can’t see. He doesn’t let his thoughts drift to the drawbacks of listening at doors, even though there are a lot of them.

“No,” Maedhros says. “I  _ know  _ either Celegorm or Curufin or maybe, no,  _ probably _ both are trying to pull the wool over your eyes. People don’t just develop Foresight out of the blue, and even if that could happen, when have you ever known either of them to be anything more than petty and vindictive at best?”

Celegorm shelves the offense at that, partially because Maedhros is probably right and partially because Maedhros is suspicious and that's a problem.

There's quiet for a few moments, and Fingolfin's voice, when he speaks, is scarcely louder than the silence.

"They didn't used to be like this. None of you did."

A pause. Celegorm hears Maedhros sit back down. "No, we didn't. We didn't used to live on the warfront either. And we're not the only ones who are different. Fighting Morgoth has changed every single person in Beleriand.”

And the last sentence is said with that powerful mix of sorrow and steady determination that makes people listen to Maedhros even when they don't want to. That makes entire armies listen to him.

There are a few more beats of silence, and then Maedhros speaks again. "Did they give you any reason, any reason at all, to believe that sending an army against Morgoth is a legitimate venture and not- not just-" Maedhros breaks off and Celegorm imagines he's making some hand gesture to explain what he thinks of all this.

There’s yet another wordless moment, filled with the sound of movement, and Celegorm hates that he can’t see through the door to know who’s moving and how. Not being able to see body language makes spying so much harder that it needs to be.

“Besides the fact that for a moment, Celegorm sounded exactly like Galadriel or Finarfin would when they delivered prophecies?” Fingolfin says, with a hint of humor in his voice that sounds like it can’t decide whether to be wry or grim.

He hears movement again, and once again wishes that he could see inside to read the body language of whoever is moving.

“You didn’t say that before,” Maedhros says sharply. “What did Celegorm tell you, exactly?”

“I thought you said that you don’t believe him because Foresight doesn’t just develop randomly.”

“It doesn’t. But everyone in this family has given a prophecy at one point or another.”

“And one prophecy isn’t the same as suddenly having Foresight,” Fingolfin agrees, with the rising inflection that means he’s making his own connections and inferences based on that. “ _ Oh _ .”

“So what did he prophesy?”

“He told me that if I leave Fingon with the crown, Fingon will die. That’s almost verbatim what he said, I think.”

“What?” Maedhros says, incredulous. “What were you discussing? Were you  _ planning  _ on dying?"

There’s the sound of furniture shifting just a little, like someone stood up too quickly and knocked it back.

“I don’t have to discuss that with you,” Fingolfin says with affected calm.

“You were,” Maedhros accuses. “Why? What could be worth that?”

There are several breathless moments of silence.

“Tell me,” Maedhros demands.

“Or what?” Fingolfin asks. He’s pushing, and he probably knows it.

Maedhros knows as well, if his next words are anything to go by, spoken in a version of the tone he’s used to reason with younger siblings and cousins for centuries.

“I’m not going to threaten you. Do you know how that would end, with my luck and my reputation? But I still want to know what you were thinking.”

“That tone isn’t going to work on me,” Fingolfin says. “I’m not a child.”

“You’re acting like one,” Maedhros says. “But I can’t make you tell me anything. Just… don’t get yourself killed on purpose. Please.”

There’s a pause, and Celegorm again gets the sense that there’s body language he’s missing.

“Now,” Maedhros says, and the tone says that they’ve moved on to some other issue, “are you sure your healers are entirely competent? Because they said Fingon should be lucid by now, but he seems utterly convinced that Celegorm is the one who shot him, and that he wasn’t supposed to tell me that.”

“Yes,” Fingolfin agrees not quite calmly. “I was in the room when he mentioned that.”

“He was very upset over it.”

“Well, I imagine I would be upset as well if I thought I’d been shot by a family member.”

“No, no,” Maedhros says, “He wasn’t upset that Celegorm was the one doing the shooting. Or even that he thinks Celegorm meant to shoot you. He was almost flippant about that. He was upset that, apparently, Celegorm fell out of a tree and was injured in the process of shooting him.”

“I’ll speak with the healers,” Fingolfin says after a moment. “And I know how you worry, but Celegorm wasn’t injured beyond a few nasty bruises. Not so far as I know, at least. Apparently, he and Curufin got caught up by the same orcs that were shooting at us. If he’d shot at us and then fallen out of a tree, I think I would have noticed.”

Celegorm is almost sent reeling with relief. They don’t believe Fingon. He shouldn't have said anything in the first place, he promised not to, but they don’t believe him. Celegorm isn’t in trouble. The worry that’s been singing along his nerves for the past week disappears so quickly that Celegorm almost misses the sound of footsteps coming to the door.

He scrambles into the nearest room that isn’t Fingolfin’s office and holds very still. He hears the office door open and someone step out, then Maedhros’s voice, dismissive.

“I thought I heard someone.”

The office door closes again and Celegorm waits a good thirty seconds more before he dares to move. He’s shaking just a tiny bit, the most annoying aftereffect of adrenaline. He would have trained himself out of it years ago if it could be done. As it is, he just ignores it.

He doesn’t want to push his luck any more than he already has, so he makes for the stairs to leave. There are still voices coming from Fingon’s room when he passes, and, against his better judgement, he stops and knocks lightly. He opens the door without waiting for an answer.

Fingon and Curufin are sitting on the floor against the wall. Fingon is curled up against Curufin, which makes an interesting picture since Curufin is the only one in the family who’s shorter than Fingon. He looks like he’s either been crying or might cry and Curufin is obviously uncomfortable with the arrangement, and like as not he’d rather be literally anywhere else, but Celegorm’s attention is distracted for a moment from rescuing his brother from emotions by the paintings on the walls.

They’re good. Not masterpieces, Fingon’s mother was always a better painter than he was, but the quality isn’t what draws his eye.

Most are bright, happy scenes from Aman before the Silmarils. Auntie Lalwen in full regalia dancing with Nessa’s Maiar. Aredhel and Celegorm coming back from a hunt covered in dirt and leaves with a brace of quails between them. Finrod with an infant Galadriel on his lap. All manner of other things, parties and hunts and days at the lake, and Celegorm abruptly realizes how much he misses it all.

A few of the paintings, though, are grim and disturbing, and they stand out all the more for it. One is mostly in blues: inky water reflecting stars, with a dark skinned hand reaching up from the water’s surface and a distorted, gasping face underneath. Another is fire, with a silhouette of something that Celegorm can’t quite place in the background. By far the worst, though, is one of grey brown stone, interrupted by a black ring of metal that holds a pale, emaciated hand.

Celegorm turns away, feeling more than a little sick, and focuses his attention on Fingon and Curufin instead of the gruesome scene on the canvas.

“What’s going on?” he asks, crouching down so that he’s on a level with the two of them.

Fingon manages to look more upset. “I’m sorry,” he says anxiously. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think about it.”

Celegorm knows exactly what it is Fingon didn’t think about, but he asks appearances, so he affects as much confusion as he can and asks, “What?”

Curufin answers.

“I went to find Maedhros to do my hair. Him and Fingolfin were with Fingon and they were all talking while Maedhros did the braids, and Fingon mentioned the army that Fingolfin is planning on making. The army which, as far as Fingolfin is concerned, Fingon is supposed to have absolutely no idea about.”

His voice is accusing, and Celegorm winces. That… might be a problem. Most likely will be a problem, really. The danger of eavesdropping, he belatedly remembers Auntie Lalwen telling him once when he was a child, is that it’s almost impossible to get the full story that way. And, of course, she was right.

“Apparently,” Curufin continues, like he’s about to impart some fascination kernel of gossip, “Fingolfin didn’t actually mention the army in that letter he sent, so Maedhros was not aware that Fingolfin is planning on calling on his alliances to increase the number of soldiers we have going against Morgoth. And then Fingolfin mentioned our part in all this, and Fingon just blurted out that the plan was for him to gather the army, but you shot him instead of Fingolfin.”

And there’s the kicker. Wonderful. Celegorm already heard some of this from his spying, but that doesn’t make it any more pleasant to hear.

Well, he thinks, at least there isn’t going to be much need for damage control.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! It's been a minute! This is just a short chapter and it ends kind of abruptly because this week has been the week from hell but I didn't want to make you guys wait any longer for me to add more words. I'll see if I can make the next chapter longer than usual to make up for it!

The next few days pass without incident. Celegorm wouldn’t exactly call it pleasant, dodging questions that dig too deep and constantly watching what he says to make sure it all matches up, but there are myriad ways it could be worse, and he’s not stupid enough to believe that his luck will hold out through all the years between now and the next important event, so he’ll be happy with the tense peace while it lasts.

Eventually, Maedhros has to leave. He seems loathe to do so, and Fingon seems just as reluctant to let him. They’re all standing in the courtyard together, and the five or so men Maedhros brought with him are already mounted and waiting impatiently for the farewells to be said.

Fingon has waited to be the last one to bid Maedhros goodbye. He holds on to Maedhros’ hand with the one of his that isn’t still in a sling, and he doesn’t outright ask Maedhros to stay, but everyone in the courtyard can tell he wants to.

Instead, he says, in a voice that would be too quiet to be heard if Celegorm hadn’t been on high alert for the past week, “Be safe. Come see me again soon.”

Maedhros smiles, just a tiny upward curl of his lips, and gives Fingon a shallow not quite bow. “Of course,” he murmurs in the same quiet tone.

Celegorm wonders if there’s something there that he isn’t seeing, but he brushes it off. It doesn’t matter what’s going on between Maedhros and Fingon so long as it isn’t going to have a bearing on the future. And Celegorm doesn’t actually have any way to know what lasting impact the changes he’s made are going to have, so he just has to trust that they’re both smart enough that they won’t let feelings get in the way of staying alive.

_ They’re probably not _ , part of his mind chimes in.

Unfortunate as that is, Celegorm has no trouble admitting that it’s true, because Fingon came off the Ice and walked into Angband before the chill had even faded. He pushes the thought away by reminding himself that Maedhros is too stubborn to get captured again, because if he starts worrying about Fingon doing something stupid, he’ll undoubtedly get stuck in a loop of things that could go wrong again.

“You’re welcome in the city any time,” Fingon says, this time at a more conventional volume. The tone is diplomatic, but Celegorm knows it’s a statement that could easily be taken badly if any of Fingolfin’s nobles, or even people who aren’t nobles, were here, because Fingolfin’s people don’t tend to look favorably upon the Sons of Feanor no matter what their prince thinks.

“Thank you,” Maedhros says, “but holding Himring is a task that I can’t take many breaks from.”

The words are belied by the little nod and secretive smile he directs at Fingon for half a heartbeat, but it’s still a conciliatory statement. Maedhros might not like using spies himself, but he’s smart enough to know that there’s always someone listening who shouldn’t be and he knows how to twist his words to make sure that there’s not anything that can be actively used against him.

Fingon lets go of Maedhros’s hand, reluctance flickering over his face for a moment before his expression is schooled into one of inscrutable pleasantness. “I bid you farewell, then, until the next time our paths cross.”

Maedhros inclines his head and swings himself up onto his horse. It’s mostly very polite and proper, but now that Celegorm is actually looking for it, it’s hard not to notice the parts of it that… aren’t.

It’s not up to him to worry about that, though, he reminds himself.

Maedhros and his retinue ride out of the gates and Celegorm turns to Fingon and Fingolfin. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he says without any preamble. He continues before Fingon can accuse him of being a hypocrite, like he knows his cousin wants to. “You both need to stay alive to lead this army you’re building.”

“Does that mean you’ll be leaving soon?” Fingolfin asks.

Celegorm nods. “This afternoon, most likely. There are things that have to be done in Nargothrond.”

“Oh? What things?”

“Oh, politics, family things, you know how it is. Have you met Orodreth’s new baby yet? He looks just like grandfather.

Celegorm tries to deflect Fingolfin’s attention in the best way he knows how. Mentioning a new addition to the family was always a sure fire way to make their father forget about whatever he was asking, so perhaps it will work on their uncle as well.

It seems his luck has decided to keep up, because Fingolfin smiles in that caught off guard way he does when he fails to properly shield his expression. “I didn’t know Orodreth had had another child. What’s his name?”

“Gil-galad,” Curufin supplies shortly. He’s been in a temper today, and Celegorm suspects he’s worrying about Tyelpe again now that the drama has calmed down somewhat.

“Does he really look like grandfather?” Fingon asks, trying and failing to maintain the air of polite disinterest he’s kept up for the past few minutes.

“Well, not yet,” Celegorm admits, “but you can tell that he’s going to when he grows up.”

Which is true. Even in the most uncertain stage of infancy, it’s apparent that Gil-galad is going to lean more towards the Noldorin side of his ancestry. Granted, it might help that Celegorm saw Gil-galad as a young child before he was sent off to Cirdan, and not only as a baby, but still. The boy will be an inverse copy of his sister, black haired and white skinned where she’s gold haired and brown skinned, with bright quicksilver eyes and the wise beyond his years demeanor that earned Finwe the title of Noldoran, lifetimes ago in a world that’s now more legend than history.

Celegorm wonders, for a moment, what became of Gil-galad in the time that Celegorm remembers nothing of, after he died in Doriath. He wonders what became of a lot of people after Doriath. He wonders about his brothers, of course, or at least the four who he didn’t see dying or surrounded. He really hopes the twins made it out alright.

He wonders about other people as well, though. He wonders about his friends and about his people and about all the people in Doriath who were probably just fighting because they were ordered to or because they were loyal to their king. Celegorm doesn’t like the Doriathrim, but he does understand loyalty.

He also wonders about Caranthir’s wife, Herenyanel, who is maybe not a good person but she followed them to Beleriand and didn’t turn back or die early like Curufin and Maglor’s wives did, and that makes her family. He hopes she survived, but he’s fairly sure that she’s too stubborn to actually let anyone kill her, so it’s not as much of a source of worry as the twins’ fate is.

Celegorm realizes that he hasn’t been paying attention to anything going on around him for the past thirty seconds or so, and he makes an effort to tune back in long enough to be sure that nothing has imploded. Curufin is snarking at Fingon, but Fingon is giving as good as he gets, so Celegorm decides there’s not really a problem there.

Fingolfin is tapping his foot on the cobblestones, wearing a long suffering expression of the sort that means he’s not particularly bothered by the snippy conversation, but he wishes they’d stop anyway because he doesn’t want to deal with it either. That’s par for the course around a moody Curufin, though, so it’s also not a problem.

Having ascertained that there isn’t anything that requires his immediate attention, Celegorm lets his thoughts continue to wander, but now that he’s actually paying attention to reality again, he’s too aware of himself to get lost in his morbid wonderings. That is, admittedly, probably a good thing. Thinking of death too much can’t be good for a person.

Still, now that he’s started thinking of the Ambarussa, he finds himself unable to stop. So far as Celegorm remembers, they never played too big of a part in the major battles. Maedhros wouldn't let them, and they were always more the scholarly type than warriors. Even if they can both be deadly when they need to, their first calling is and always has been to the finer arts of magic, osanwe and healing and the like. Which has its uses, of course, but the twins just aren’t made for the messy, dangerous parts of war.

None of them are, really. They were raised before there had ever been a war, and even Celegorm’s unique brand of violence is more suited to hunting things that can only fight back with teeth and claws than outright warfare.

He shrugs off thoughts like that for the time being. It doesn’t particularly matter at this point. They’ve all been on the frontlines for centuries, and will be for Eru only knows how much longer.

And besides, he’ll have plenty of time to think things through while they’re riding back to Nargothrond.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote the first part of this chapter while I was in a Cosmology lecture about theoretical black hole physics, which is probably why it talks so much about the physics of the Girdle of Melian.

The journey back to Nargothrond is as monotonous, at first, as the ride to Barad Eithel was frantic. There’s less urgency to get to their destination, which means that Celegorm isn’t constantly pushing to go faster and there’s no resultant snapping from Curufin. Celegorm hadn’t realized exactly how much of the boredom of long days of travel could be alleviated by an argument.

Curufin is still impatient to see Tyelpe, though, which makes it a toss up as to whether he’ll get upset on any given day, not that Celegorm can really blame him. In the hours immediately after he remembered Doriath, Celegorm clung to Curufin like he’d disappear if he let go, and he’s sure that he’ll do the same to Caranthir and Herenyanel the next time he sees them.

They have to pass around Doriath again in order to reach Nargothrond, and Celegorm sees more than one familiar face peering at them curiously from behind the Girdle. There are even more who he doesn’t recognize, all of them armed and most looking none too pleased with the presence of two Feanorians on their border.

On the way to Barad Eithel, they camped only one night against the Girdle, partially because they were in a hurry and partially because Curufin deliberately steered them away from Doriath after the way Celegorm reacted to seeing the woman he beheaded. This time, they are going to end up spending two nights hugging the border, because it’s the fastest way from Barad Eithel to Nargothrond unless they were to go directly through the heart of Doriath, and while neither of them are particularly interested in staying on the road for longer than they really have to, they also know better than to try something like that.

The Doriathrim are blatantly following them. It takes him maybe five minutes to notice. They’re not even trying to hide it, probably because they know that Celegorm and Curufin can’t confront them through the Girdle.

Admittedly, Celegorm would rather know that he’s being watched so that he can act accordingly, even if it sends tension singing down already tattered nerves, and he’s not sure if he _would_ know if they were making any attempt to conceal themselves, since hearing and sight don’t act like they should when he’s observing anything on the other side of the barrier.

That night is long and awkward, because there are three Sindar patrolmen watching their every move from behind the Girdle, which is less than were trailing them throughout the afternoon but still too many to not be awkward. Just _one_ watcher would be more than enough to make things strange, but three is pushing the limits of Celegorm’s patience.

Unfortunately, throwing stones at the uniformed Sindar warriors _doesn’t work_ because things that go through the border change direction and speed and warp strangely and remind Celegorm of all the mind boggling physics problems his father and Caranthir used to get so hung up on, back when there was time to worry about theories instead of practicalities.

The next day, Celegorm almost misses the soldiers. He gets up at dawn and starts making breakfast, a brace of rabbits he set snares for the night before, while he waits for Curufin to wake up. He keeps his back stubbornly to the Girdle the entire time.

Curufin grumbles awake an hour later and Celegorm hands him a dish. Curufin gets three bites in before he glances at the Girdle in vague curiosity and chokes. Celegorm frowns and turns that direction, then immediately wishes he hadn’t.

It’s no longer only guards watching them. Word must have spread of their presence, because there are two or three people in regular everyday clothes gawking at them from behind the barrier. Celegorm picks up the nearest rock and throws it at them, even though he knows full well it isn’t going to connect, then sets to packing up camp.

“It’s not as though you’ve never seen a Noldo before,” he snaps at the unwanted spectators as he cinches the straps on his pack. He’s not sure they heard him thanks to the Girdle’s weird magic, but he doesn’t particularly care either.

Curufin quickly finishes his breakfast, then swings into his saddle and sets a quick but sustainable pace along Doriath’s border. Celegorm would very much like to go a different direction, but this is the fastest way back to Nargothrond, and he mentally curses Thingol for putting his realm right smack in the middle of the continent.

There aren’t a lot of civilians watching them, and most get bored and disappear within an hour, but they’re being even more obvious about it than the patrolmen of yesterday and, apparently, they keep telling their friends all about the _fascinating_ pair of Noldor on the border, because every time one leaves, another comes to take their place. The border guards aren’t even pretending to try to stop them.

But the thing about it that bothers Celegorm the most is that it makes him feel like an animal in a cage on display. Noise and talking and such don’t translate like they would through a non magical border, so it’s like being behind a piece of glass. And everyone on the other side is goggling at him as though he’s some kind of oddity.

It’s midafternoon when he finally gives in to the impulse to start throwing things again. He picks up a little round stone from the ground and pitches it as hard as he can, aiming above the observers’ heads. As he expects, the stone abruptly changes direction when it hits the Girdle, which makes it incredibly impressive when a woman steps through to the front of the crowd, stone held up next to her head like she’s caught it.

Celegorm can’t quite make out her face through the Girdle’s distortion, but that doesn’t last long. She keeps walking straight forward and the shimmering air that marks the Girdle’s presence warps around her to let her through.

Luthien, he realizes abruptly. She comes to stand in front of Celegorm and Curufin, offering up the stone with an annoyed tilt to her peaceful expression. She’s as beautiful as Celegorm remembers, and also somewhat taller. He has to look up a little to meet her eyes.

“You shouldn’t throw rocks at my people,” she says.

“Your people shouldn’t goggle at strangers,” Celegorm shoots back. “We’re not doing anything wrong.”

“But you _are_ strangers, and it’s rare enough to see Sindar strangers here, let alone Noldor. You don’t have to do anything wrong to be noticed.”

“Well maybe you’d get more Noldor if you didn’t annoy them all away.”

“Perhaps we don’t want more Noldor,” Luthien says, and Celegorm gets the sense that she’s having far too much fun with this.

“What does that mean?” Curufin says, hand on the hilt of his sword as he puts himself in the middle of an argument that he doesn’t know he can’t win.

Even through the distortion of the Girdle, Celegorm can see the patrolmen bristle.

“Galadriel is a Noldo, and we’re happy with only her. We don’t need more.” Luthien glances at Curufin’s sword. “Especially not ones who would draw steel on someone they’ve only just met.”

“I haven’t drawn steel,” Curufin snaps, “but if you continue to say such things about me, I will.”

Luthien’s lip curls in distaste, and Celegorm steps between them before she can speak. Luthien is powerful, and she’ll pass through Nargothrond sometime soon. He’d rather she like them than want to hurt them.

“We don’t want a fight,” he says, gesturing for Curufin to be quiet. “We’re only travelling.”

Luthien’s expression smoothes out. “Perhaps I’ll walk with you for a time,” she says.

Curufin doesn’t seem to be too keen on the prospect, but- “We’re near enough to your realm that I doubt we could stop you,” Celegorm says, which is as close to an acknowledgement of her power that Luthien is going to get.

She seems to realize this, as she raises one delicate eyebrow in idle curiosity. “You know who I am, then?” she asks, like it’s actually an important matter and she thinks he’s bluffing.

Celegorm meets the slight challenge in her tone, undaunted. “You are Luthien, Crown Princess of Doriath and daughter of Melian the Maia. And if you can keep up, you can travel with us until we turn away south to Nargothrond.”

“If I can-” Luthien begins, tone slightly confused, but before she can finish, Curufin is back in the saddle and Celegorm is hauling himself up onto Huan’s back.

He’s been looking for an excuse to speed up without looking terribly suspicious all day, because he can handle soldiers watching them, but civilians is a bit much. He sees Luthien’s eyes light in understanding and a little bit of excitement as Curufin kicks his horse into a fast canter and Huan settles into a long, loping stride. Luthien gapes for half a second despite the fact that she seemed to connect the dots, then starts running after them. Celegorm is fairly sure she can match them if she wants to, at least for a time.

She’s quick to prove him right, dark hair trailing behind her like spilled ink as she draws level with Huan’s shoulder. “You’re fun,” she calls over the wind they’ve stirred up, sounding decisive. She keeps pace with them for a decent fifteen minutes, which is longer than Celegorm expected, before she slows to a stop so she can breathe.

Celegorm, for all that he said they’d leave her behind if she couldn’t keep up, tugs Huan around to wait for her. She raises a hand in acknowledgement of his presence. Curufin is still giving off a prickly, impatient air, but it’s lessened somewhat now that he’s decided Luthien isn’t going to try to skewer them while their backs are turned.

“Perhaps we do have the room for one or two more Noldor,” Luthien says once she catches her breath.

Celegorm shakes his head. “We can’t stay. We have things to do in Nargothrond and your fate lies here in Doriath.”

Luthien frowns. “You speak as though you’ve seen it.”

_That’s one way to put it._ “I have,” he says. “And I can offer you a bit of advice, if you’ll let me.”

Luthien inclines her head and gestures in invitation. “Go ahead. My mother has taught me well enough to listen to those who know more than I do.”

“In about ten years, give or take, you’ll come to Nargothrond with someone who is owed a favor by its king. If you ask the king for help, it will lead to the doom of all involved.” He pauses to let this sink in, and doesn’t reveal that she’ll come back from the dead and get her happily ever after anyway. “I’ll be in Nargothrond then. Ask me instead.”

“And that will end better?” she asks.

Celegorm shrugs a little. “I certainly hope so.”

Luthien is still for a moment, holding his gaze with a scrutinizing expression. “Why are you offering help to someone you’ve only known for half an hour?”

“I have…” Celegorm hesitates, searching for words. “I have a personal interest in the thing you’re going to need help with. This way, we can help each other, and no one has to die.”

There’s a long few seconds where Luthien’s obviously trying to figure out if she can trust him, but then she finally nods, only a tiny bit uncertain, and says, “Alright.”

Celegorm returns her nod. “In that case, I’ll see you in ten years.”

“Ten years,” Luthien agrees. “Good luck.” With that, she steps back through the Girdle and disappears into the trees.

They continue riding toward Nargothrond, and Curufin waits until he’s sure she’s out of earshot before he says, “Why were you trying to make friends with her? It’s not as though it really matters if Finrod dies.”

“Orodreth,” Celegorm says pointedly.

Curufin grimaces. “He’s not so bad,” he says, though it has little conviction. “Tyelpe likes him.”

“Tyelpe likes everyone. But for all that Orodreth is fine as a lord, he makes a terrible king.”

“Terrible?” Curufin asks, a little skeptically.

“Nargothrond fell,” Celegorm returns, utterly deadpan.

“…Ah.”

“So we’re making friends with Luthien, because she got us banished the first time around and I’d rather Nargothrond not fall again. That was a mess.”

“And you don’t know what happened to Tyelpe,” Curufin adds.

“Hey. Tyelpe is safe in Nargothrond. He’s probably playing with Finduilas and Gil-galad right now. And I’m going to make sure that he’ll be fine.”

Curufin takes a deep breath. “Right.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't really like the way this ends but I wanted to finally get out another chapter of this and it does lead nicely into what happens next so I'm just going to live with it.

Finrod catches them at the gates, looking uncharacteristically frazzled, and Celegorm wonders what part of his mind thought it was realistic to expect even a moment’s peace. Even back in Valinor, no one in their family had even the smallest measure of calm. He sighs heavily and jumps down off Huan’s back, ready to walk the rest of the way into the city so that they can talk to Finrod.

“What’s the problem?” he asks.

Finrod glances at him, brow furrowed, and shakes his head. “Um, it’s not really anything that’s your problem. I’m just waiting for Caranthir and Herenyanel. They’re supposed to get here some time this afternoon, if nothing happens.”

Celegorm should know better than to ask what business Caranthir and Herenyanel have in Nargothrond. It should be some sort of ingrained self preservation instinct, because Caranthir might be somewhat of a stick in the mud, but every time Celegorm has ever been around Herenyanel for any significant amount of time, he’s ended up hungover in a bush or concussed in a hay cart or lost in a camp of human nomads a hundred miles from the nearest elven city or any number of other less than ideal situations that he really doesn’t want to deal with right now.

He should know better than to ask, and he should just leave it alone and avoid Herenyanel for the duration of their visit. But apparently his sense of self preservation has gone out the window with his morals, because he asks, “Why are they coming?”

“Uh,” Finrod says blankly, for some reason caught off guard by the question. He takes a few seconds to marshall his thoughts, and Celegorm is momentarily stricken by how tired his cousin looks. “Because they both have some experience with Foresight,” he says at last.

“So do you,” Curufin points out, and Celegorm nods agreement. Finrod was one of the first in the family to come into his abilities.

“Right.” There’s a pause, and Celegorm almost isn’t sure if Finrod is going to continue. “But no one in the family has been able to sleep properly in days. Finduilas is keeping up the family tradition of coming into her powers early, and she wakes up screaming more often than not. I think she’s in the forges with Tyelpe,” he adds as an afterthought, then looks at Celegorm in bafflement when Curufin runs off.

“Is he alright?”

Celegorm waves him off. “It’s fine.”

There’s a short silence which quickly grows awkward.

“I should go find Curufin,” Celegorm says to excuse himself, and Finrod nods and turns back to the gate.

Curufin is not going to be difficult to find. He’ll be wherever Tyelpe is for the next few hours, and that’s usually the forge, so Celegorm isn’t in a hurry. The hustle and bustle of the city is familiar, but the narrow back alleys, barely more than dark spaces between buildings where people get up to shadier happenings, make a map so ingrained in his mind that he could walk them in his sleep.

Huan is too big to follow Celegorm here, and he sits at the opening of the alley and whines as Celegorm walks away. He makes his way past the market, which is loud even from a distance, and heads for the forges deep in the underground part of the city. 

It’s quiet here, in the way that their family’s estate outside of Tirion was always quiet. There are the clanging sounds of hammers on metal, and the low roar of many flames, and the occasional ruffle of drafting papers being shoved aside in frustration, but there are very few voices.

Tyelpe is easy to find, since his personal station is near the door. Curufin is hugging him, squeezing like he might disappear, and Tyelpe is holding his hands out to the sides, holding a wire bristled brush in one and a dirty rag in the other. By the looks of it, he was doing some serious cleaning until Curufin arrived. Now, he’s just trying to assure Curufin that he’s completely fine.

Finduilas is on a stool at the drafting table. She’s out of place here, tiny and wearing colorful frills that aren’t safe anywhere near an open flame. Tyelpe’s notes are pushed aside and Finduilas has a little pile of rocks that even Celegorm can tell aren’t of very good quality. She also has a glue pot, which she’s using to stick the rocks together, and a little jeweler’s hammer, probably to make her feel like she’s doing real forgework.

Celegorm, seeing that Curufin isn’t moving any time soon, approaches her. The shape she’s making with the rocks looks familiar, though he can’t place it. “What are you making?” he asks, using the voice he perfected when the twins were young that makes it sounds like he’s incredibly interested in finding out.

She places another rock with an expression of intense conversation and taps on it with the hammer. Then she looks up at him. “Dragon,” she says, very solemnly for such a small child. Celegorm feels like the breath has been knocked out of him. He’s almost certain that Findualas died in the Fall of Nargothrond, and dragonfire is a horrible way to go. If that’s what she’s seeing as the beginning of her Foresight, it’s no wonder that no one can sleep for her nightmares.

She picks up another little rock, bluish grey. Celegorm hands her a different one instead. “He was more greenish, I think,” he offers. If the dragon did kill her, that’s probably not the best thing to say, but children have no sense of tact anyway.

Finduilas looks at him again, surprised. “You know it?” she asks in a small voice.

Celegorm nods. “But you’ll be alright.” _I promise_ , he doesn’t say, because one unbreakable oath is plenty, but it’s there for anyone to notice if they pay attention. Finduilas hugs him, and Celegorm is startled for a moment before he awkwardly hugs her back. He hasn’t been hugged by a child since Tyelpe was little.

He hangs around for a few more minutes, but a forge has never been his scene, and eventually, after making sure that Tyelpe isn’t too squished, he leaves.

Most of Nargothrond’s perpetual crowd is made up of Finrod’s people, or dwarves or humans on good terms with the city, but a fair number are people he recognises from Himlad. He talks to some of them, which is strange because he remembers some of them staying behind in Nargothrond with Tyelpe and others dying at Doriath.

Some of the people are even his friends, people he’s known since Aman or people who he only became close to in Beleriand. People who were with him until the end, and not just because he’s their leader.

“Celegorm!” one woman calls, bounding up to him with endless energy and draping herself over his shoulders like a big cat, and he stumbles a little under the sudden weight. Caladinen is her name, they had a fling back in Aman, but it didn’t work out because she wanted real romance and he was perfectly happy with just the physical aspects of the relationship. “It’s good to see you up, we were all worried about you.”

Before he can answer, more of their friends approach, at a much less energetic pace.

“Don’t crush him, ‘nen,” one of them says, looping his arm through hers to get her to put her feet back on the ground. “Where’ve you been?” he asks. “We were keeping an eye on Huan for you, not that he really needs it, but then he disappeared.”

“Barad Eithel,” Celegorm answers, distantly.

The other elf’s expression is open and friendly, but the face underneath is familiar because of more than just friendship, and he can’t quite place it. Then his friend frowns, and it hits him. The last time they saw each other was in a corridor in Menegroth, just minutes before Celegorm died. This was the friend who had tried to save him. Who had followed the last order Celegorm ever issued and left him to die alone so that he could chase after the girl with the Silmaril. Eryndir, he recalls.

Celegorm shouldn’t feel bitter about that, he knows. It had been an order, for all that there had been no words exchanged, and they had both known that it would take a miracle for Celegorm to make it out of there alive. He shouldn’t feel bitter, but he does anyway. One of his oldest friends chose following an order over staying with him.

Celegorm remembers that the Oath had been pulling particularly hard at that point, but had it really driven such a wedge between him and his friends? Enough so that Eryndir hadn’t even argued when he’d been told to go? If their places had been reversed, would Celegorm have done the same?

He… doesn’t know. And that scares him.

Eryndir and Caladinen and their other friends are looking at him with concern. Celegorm shakes his head and waves his hand dismissively, but that only seems to make them worry more, so he puts the tips of his thumb and middle finger in his mouth and whistles, loud and sharp. Eryndîr jerks back, hands covering his ears, as Huan bounds onto the wide street they’re standing on.

Celegorm swings up onto Huan’s back and clings to familiar fur and Huan runs back towards the gates they only came through an hour ago. Celegorm almost feels bad for leaving his friends behind like that, but the sudden wash of doubt and his best friend, the last face he ever saw, asking him where he’d been is too much for him to handle. He thinks recent events make him entitled to a little bit of selfishness and irrationality.

And the last time he ran off like this, it had been when he was still an adolescent back in Aman, if only barely, when Caranthir was just a small child and their mother was very pregnant with Curufin.

Then, it had been over an argument with his father, a bad one. Then, it had been raining and he’d been crying and furious with himself for it. Then, he’d run all the way to Tirion and broken into Aredhel’s room with a bottle of ale he didn’t remember buying and drank with her. Fingolfin’s anger when they’d showed up to lunch hungover the next day had almost been welcome compared with the endless arguments with his father.

Now, there’s no Aredhel to run to, no ale to drink, and no Maedhros standing at the gate to their home screaming at him to come back. There’s only the river winding through the hills to one side of the road and the trees to the other, and neither looks particularly inviting, though he doesn’t really want to continue on the road either. It isn’t a very well known road, but it’s popular among those who do know of it, and Celegorm isn’t interested in coming across other people at the moment, so he turns off into the woods.

He keeps just near enough to the road that he can still see any travelers who pass by, and they him. Nargothrond might be safe, but he knows that beyond where Finrod can protect, there are worse things than being caught in conversation with passersby.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Caladinen means light on the water. Eryndir means woodsman. They may or may not play a major role in the story, but the Feanorians need more friends than just each other.


End file.
